Surprise!

I threw a suprise party for Doug's 33rd birthday at his parent's house. Here's how the night went down...

We go on a date every Friday night and Doug's parents watch the girls. Savannah usually spends the night and we just pick up Holly after our date. We always call before we come to pick up Holly after our date so his parents can get Savannah in the bath or upstairs where she won't see us. (Otherwise she'll want to come home.) So, I arranged for everyone to get to Doug's parents' house at 7pm and told them we'd be there at about 7:20pm. Timing it was the hardest part, but it worked out perfectly. We went to CPK in Orem for dinner at 5pm and we both ordered salads so we were done with dinner at 5:45pm. I knew we had to kill at least an hour so when we saw the Men's Warehouse across the street and Doug asked if he could go try on some suits (for his upcoming interview with the church for a job) I was all for it. We were there for about an hour which put us in the car on our way home at the perfect time. As we were driving up to our house, Doug said it was my turn to go get Holly since he had done it the past several weeks. He had his dad's truck to take back too but said he would do it in the morning. I had to think fast to get him to go with me without giving away the surprise. So, I said, as we pulled into our culdesac, "It's only 7 o'clock. We should at least go do something, like play pool in your parent's basement. We can just sneak in so the girls don't see us and then grab Holly on our way out." Thankfully, he agreed. I made "the call" saying we were on our way to "get Holly" and that meant "light the cake and turn off all the lights in the basement." Doug decided to take the truck back since we were going there anyway, so we drove seperate and I was able to give more instructions over the phone as we drove over. It was a little early - 7:15pm but there were enough people there to yell "Surprise". I was so nervous as we drove up to his parents house, hoping the cars wouldn't give it away. But, to my delight, everyone did such a great job at parking their cars away from the house. =) We snuck in the garage door and Doug told his dad we were going downstairs to play pool. I could hear Savannah as we started down the stairs (she was in on the surprise), but it was silent and dark when we got down there. I turned on the pool table room lights and Doug started pulling the cover off the pool table, totally unsuspecting. All of a sudden, the HONK of a party blower made him jump, the movie theater lights came on and everyone yelled "Surprise" and started singing Happy Birthday. My cousin Connor caught Doug's shock on the video camera (wish I had it in still shots too). It was perfect! I was so nervous about everything going as planned that I was shaking once we finished singing. He never suspected a thing...Whew!

Below are some pictures of the party...and Doug's new toys!

It's a playstation II... ...and the toys to go with it =)'

(He asked for Guitar Hero but I had heard such rave

reviews about Rock Band that I had to get it instead!)

I think I made a good choice! We had a blast breaking in his birthday gift! =)
Happy 33rd Birthday Doug!