One Last Hurrah

Last Wednesday I finally pulled it off. I had been planning a surprise birthday/going away party for Brandon for over a month and it went over pretty good.
I had been stressing over all the details for quite a while like how many people will actually show up, how much food am I going to need, is anyone going to blow it. Needless to say, I was glad when it was all over.

My biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to get Brandon to the party. I decided to hold it at the fire hall since that is Brandon's home-away-from -home and I would be able to set up the party without him really knowing about it. I had everything all planned out when I got a phone call from one of his good friends who is also on the fire department. He told me there was a huge tanker spill in Manderson (which is 20 miles away) and Brandon went on the call (which was only 2 hours before the party was supposed to start). So I started to panic trying to figure out what to do now. Do I cancel the party or do I still have it and not know when the guest of honor will arrive.

Needless to say, I went with the latter. Everyone showed up and were really understanding about the situation. (It really helped that the majority of the guests were fellow fire fighters and their families). We cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs to feed everyone while they waited.

Finally, over an hour and a half after everyone had shown up Brandon drove up to the fire hall with tons of people waiting outside to wish him a happy birthday and good luck.

Needless to say he was super surprised. It was a real challenge for me to keep everything a secret from him. We tell eachother everying, Christmas is almost non-existant in our house because we can't keep anything a secret. But everyone pulled together and we had a good time in the end.








Brandon when he arrived at the fire hall. Still in shock














The cake that the store decorated for Brandon. It turned out GREAT!