Surprise!

We surprised Leslie for her 18th birthday with a surprise party with all her friends. Les didn't want a sweet 16 party and she didn't think much about having an 18th birthday party either. She does however love surprise parties for other people so we thought we would try it and see if she would like one for herself. I figured......worst case she would be really mad and have to sit around with all her friends for a few hours while THEY had fun.... and I knew that wouldn't happen. :)

I have to say this took a lot of effort.... a lot of effort in the middle of a month of senior prom and graduation party planning. The tough part was keeping the secret from her. Leslie is VERY hard to surprise. We have tried several times throughout her life to surprise her and we usually could hold her off until the day of the surprise, but she would usually have the surprise figured out before we actually could unfold the entire surprise to her. She picks up on clues like no one I have ever seen.

We surprised the kids one year while on vacation with swimming with manatees. We woke up, told the kids we were going to drive around and see parts of Florida we have never seen before. We told them we would stop at restaurants we have never eaten at and maybe stop at some beaches we had never seen before. Before we even made it to the place where we were going to swim with the manatees she had already figured out what we were doing. How? She saw signs that mentioned swimming with manatees and figured that was what we were doing. What kid jumps to those kind of assumtions?

We figured even if she did find out about her party she would still have a great time hanging out with her friends. Speaking of friends.... Les has great friends. They all kept quiet and did a great job helping us to pull this off. She was so surprised that when she came in the door she was so startled her legs almost buckled underneath her.

The first set up began with Anthony telling Les he was taking her out on a special date for her birthday on Saturday evening. This kept her from making any other plans for the night. I had spoken to her boss several weeks prior asking him to give her the night off. We made a special, secret event on facebook that only invited guests could see. I messaged her friends telling them where to park and when to arrive.

Everyone parked down the street at a near by elementary school so Les didn't see any cars when she came home. Anthony and I decided he would "forget" his wallet here at the house and they would need to come back for it. Anthony was brilliant in that he made sure Les saw him go into the bathroom prior to them leaving so he would have an excuse as to why and where he left his wallet. She said later that she thought it was pretty weird that he kept saying... " I am going to use the restroom" several times before he actually went in...but she kept walking away and he wanted to be sure she saw him go into the restroom. She said "I thought to myself... just go to the restroom already". :)

After everyone had arrived I texted Leslie telling her I thought Anthony forgot his wallet here at the house. She texted back saying "yes, he forgot it, we are on our way back home to get it". I alerted everyone and we waited what seemed like an eternity to yell SURPRISE!


She came in the door to find me in the kitchen. I said "Hi, (trying to act like nothing was going on) Anthony's wallet is in on the fireplace". She walked around the corner to hear 15 of her friends scream surprise right in her face. She literally was blown away and if it were not for Anthony standing right behind her to catch her she would have fallen on the ground. It was fantastic!

These pictures are courtesy of Tom Hoying... I was still in the kitchen when this all happened. :)

Anthony looks quite cute carrying a purse.....

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We had hot dogs and burgers on the grill with homemade mac and cheese, chips, root beer (in case you were wondering what all the brown, beer looking bottles were), iced tea, mountain dew, water, cake and icecream.

Lap tag was played in the side yard....

followed by Playstation Sing Star...


Corn hole....


Hammock....

and sitting around the fire on the patio.

I believe she had a fantastic 18th birthday, one she hopefully will always remember. If it were not for her great friends we never would have been able to pull it off. Thank you!