Surprise Party

I love parties. L-O-V-E parties. I mainly love to throw parties and will pretty much come up with every and any reason or excuse to throw one. Party favors and all.

So I always plan my own birthday parties. Not that I love to celebrate ME, I just love to celebrate and do it in style, with every little detail covered. And because I'm a bit, shall we say, "particular" about things, I do not get surprise parties very often. My poor husband would never take on a surprise party for me. It's not his gifting, and in a way, he knows I would be sad to miss out on all the planning. (Seriously, to this point, I am facing 39 in a few months, but my 40th birthday party plans are already underway...).

But that's not to say I don't love a fun surprise every now and then.

Chris and I headed to Austin this weekend to drop ChellBell off at Becca's house. The girls are going to "away camp" this week, and the buses leave out of Austin on Monday. It was a bitter-sweet weekend for me -- the bitter realization that my girl is old enough to go to camp by herself, and the sweet of the exact same realization.

Saturday morning I pulled myself out of bed, realizing that it was the day I would say "goodbye" to Chell for a week. It felt like I would be saying "goodbye" to a part of me. I began drowning myself in coffee. Breakfast was cooking. And at 8:13 AM, Becca's doorbell rang. Who would be so rude to ring a doorbell that early?

And that's when the surprise party began.

Remember me writing about these two friends, my favorite friends in the whole world? Well, Keri and Becca have started getting to know each other through our blogs (and of course, I am constantly telling them about each other). It just so happened that Keri was going to be in Austin this weekend, so she and Becca schemed a little and made plans for Keri and her boys to come over for breakfast. Did I mention that no one told ME about these plans??? So when we go to see who in God's name would be at the door so early on a Saturday, you can imagine my shock/ confusion/ excitement/ tears/ elation when Keri and her boys are standing there in the doorway, 150 miles from home.

What a great surprise to have my two sweet friends in the same place at the same time! Thanks, girls, for using your devious, scheming minds to put such a huge smile on my face. I hope you 2 can have more moments in the same place at the same time, because you will adore each other!

Keri, me, and Becca

(Why do I have such tall friends? Aren't they sweet --

they are bending down, so I don't look that short...)

The kids (sans Jack) having fun playing!

On to confession time... To pass the time without ChellBell, I decided to "glance" at this Twilight book that everyone has read, blogged about, obsessed about... I've had no interest but thought I would see what the hype was all about. And now I get it. I'm hooked. "Sucked" in. Sped through the first book in no time and went straight to the bookstore and bought the second book.

And now before I rush off to read some more about Jacob, please visit Tanielle over at the Polka Dot Daisy today to enter her Christmas in July give-away. Tanielle is super creative, so there is no telling what she will put together as the big prize. but no doubt it will be muy fabulo-so. (And hopefully it will divert her attention from all of her morning-noon-and-night sickness she has had from being muy pregnanto-so!)