Jeff's 30th Birthday

So Jeff's 30th Birthday celebrations started Saturday night. I don't have any pictures of the night but Jeff's parents and grandmother came over for dinner! We had a wonderful dinner out on the patio! After dinner Drew (one of Jeff's good friends) took him out to the driving range and to Sweet CeCe. While he was gone I was able to make these cupcakes. I was able to bake them through out the day, hiding them in the basement and decorated while he was gone with Drew!
So our original plan for the weekend was to be in Indy and I would run a race on Saturday and we would just hang out in Indy all weekend, but on Tuesday we both decided it was probably best that we just stay home, considering I just came back from the cruise on Monday! So Tuesday is when I decided to throw him this surprise "cookout" party! VERY LAST MINUTE PLANNING!!!

Sunday was Jeff's actual birthday. We went to the 8:30 church service and headed to Patti's Restaurant. I had asked Jeff earlier in the week what he would like to do on Sunday since we were celebrating it on Saturday with his family and he said he would like to drive to Patti's after church. At first I kinda freaked out because I wasn't sure how I could pull everything off. But I was able to respond with a quick, "yeah I think we could do that."

We got to Patti's a lot faster than I thought, so I was kinda scared on what we would do to kill 3.5 hrs. Then to make it worse, I thought for sure we would have a wait, I didn't get reservations on purpose. But guess what, we got seated right away! We had a wonderful lunch! After lunch was over we still had 2.5 hours to burn. We walked around, did some shopping, saw some animals and let the kids play on the playground!

Here are a few pictures from our afternoon at Patti's.

Look closely at this picture, the boys are having a blast!!

So we left Patti's right on schedule 3:00 then went down to see the sail boats at the lake then headed home at 3:15. Perfect timing! GPS said we would be home at 5:10. Back at home, my sister came over around 2 to get everything ready for the party. I left some things out of place and the school room a mess so Jeff wouldn't think something was up. Ashley cleaned up the house and got everything out. I couldn't have done this without her help, she is AMAZING!!!! The Druelinger's and Williams' came over around 4:45 to let people in and Christy picked up the fried chicken. I was texting Cass back in forth the whole way home. Got to the Green River exit and it was right at 5:00 which meant we would be home in just a few mins. Kinda freaked out and at the last minute asked Jeff to stop to get bread so I could just make the kids sandwiches for dinner because both of us were so stuffed from lunch so I didn't plan on making a dinner for us all. He agreed on stopping only if I promised I would be quick because, by this point, Reed and Coop and been crying for a good 10 mins. So I ran (well not really kinda took my time) in to the store, came out and headed home. Pulled into our neighborhood right at 5:15. Once we pulled into our neighborhood he could already see tons and tons of cars. He reacted with "what in the world, you are so dead, I'm going to kill you" and a lot more comments like that. I was laughing so hard and the kids were so excited to see so many people in our front yard!!! Once we got to our drive way he put the van in reverse like he was going to leave. HaHa!!!

We ended up having 38 adults and 30 kids there to celebrate Jeff. I had so many moments where I just looked around and was so overwhelmed by the friends the Lord has blessed us with. I think everyone would say the party was a success and I even think Jeff had a blast. Needless to say as much as has he hates people knowing it's his birthday, I think this is a birthday he will never forget.

Thank you all who came and a big thanks to Jason for taking pictures the whole night!