Movie Night & Surprise Birthday Party

Tonight I had my first surprise birthday party ever! Apparently Emily hijacked my movie night email list without me knowing to let everyone know she wanted to surprise me! And what I thought was book club night on Tuesday night was actually food cooking night and cupcake baking night for my party at Kris Fausti's!

I got a weird text from Kevin that he wanted to go mountain biking with me after work today which I thought was odd but didn't think to much about it as it was finally a nice day after a weekend of rain. I was clueless to the fact that I had caught Emily in their side of the apartment with Kevin when I got home on last night and she had simply stated she was talking to Kevin. I kind of new something might be up but didn't know what for sure. That was until Doug came up to me at work, leaned over, and casually apologized for not being able to make the birthday festivities. When I said, "huh"? he instantly got the dear in headlights look but I didn't notice that Cathy popped her head up over the computer to give me a dirty look too. So.. later in the day when I met Kevin at Dixon to pick up some rental kayaks for the weekend I told him Doug let loose something was up and Kev just shrugged.

After work when Kevin and I were in his truck with Jason, Kevin told me that Emily had tried to plan something but with everyone leaving on vacations soon and other stuff going on nobody could commit and I had gotten a bunch of legitimate sounding emails back from people saying they weren't going to make the movie night. He told me that Emily was cooking up a nice birthday dinner for me probably for the two of us which made sense because she didn't come with us biking, instead complaining of a stomache ache.

So... after a fun ride up uproute trail and down extendo in MacDunn we got back home and as I was walking in the door complaining of our stinky trash can outside I was startled to see 15-20 of my closest friends yelling surprise at me with balloons, streamers and happy birthday signs all over the apartment! The dining room table was also stacked with awesome food I love including wings, salmon dip, chips, red velvet cupcakes, etc. Kris had even spent 3 hours making her special batch of wings for me! It was the first time in a very long time that I've felt really loved by all my friends, not just Emily. I've spent many of the past 10 years of birthdays with just my girlfriend and maybe 3 or 4 friends casually getting a drink at a bar so this was truly amazing for me. We all ate till we were full and played washers outback listening to good music and Colin even made me a bacon-wrapped fillet mignon on the grill which was fantastic. Holm and later in the night Hartz also showed up to give me best wishes. We finished the night by watching Robin Hood: Men in tights with a few stragglers till about 11:30.

This past year since my birthday (besides being hired on by Watershed which was amazing) has been a particularly bad year for me, from being constantly broke sending a ridiculous amount of money home for Ellie and then shattering my knee and losing one of the best spring ski seasons the Northwest has seen in decades. I'm sure that this party kicking off my 32nd year of life ensures that this year will be spectacular! Thank you so much to all my friends for really making it an incredible day for me and a very special thanks to the love of my life for putting it all together!