How To Plan A Successful Surprise Party In Only 82 Easy Steps!

Okay, straight to the skinny: everything came off smashingly! That said, it came perilously close to being the Party That Wasn't, since our little Miss Thing came down with a 102 temp Saturday morning.
 
Jeannette started feeling punk on the drive over Friday night. She said her head and belly hurt, just like Alex had last weekend. Luckily, we made it to Indy without a vomitous incident and she went to bed still fairly perky. I could tell she was starting to get hot, though, and that was giving her the chills.
 
When she woke up on Saturday morning, she was all blotchy and hot to the touch, so we loaded her up on Tylenol and went off to our haircuts. I knew that if I was going to have to pull the plug, it was going to be a lunchtime at the latest. When Grandpa Bob called and said that Jeannette was feeling better and that her fever had gone way down, I made the judgement call to go forward, damn the torpedos!
 
We went about our afternoon's business in regular order. Unfortunately, Jeannette's fever had gone back up, so Grandpa Bob offered to keep her at home so that we could go to dinner.
 
So, we piled into our cars and drove down to the Lotus Garden. As we were pulling in the parking lot, I noticed Laura's grandfather's widow wobbling her way inside, so I took the slooooowwww route around to find a parking space. We all went inside and were escorted to the back room, where the restaurant had drawn the vertical blinds. That kind of tipped Laura off that something was going down, and when the veil was lifted and we walked in, there were roughly 70 people that yelled "Surprise!" and began to applaud. She just stood there for a couple of seconds in shock. It was kinda nice.
 
After that, we just went about the business of feeding 70 people. Fortunately, there were 3-4 waiters assigned to our party alone, so things went pretty smoothly, all things considered. I sprang for 1 eggroll and 1 crab rangoon for everybody. I thought they were going to bring them out before we got there, but they waited until we got there. Other than that little hitch, dinner went very well, and we were able to mix about and commingle with everybody. Everyone that said they were coming actually showed up. There were a few extras that ended up tagging along, but since I built in a buffer in the total, it turned out just fine.
 
Once dinner was done and people were getting their bills, I pulled Laura up front and clinked my water glass to get everyone's attention. I dispensed with the pleasantries, credits and cast of characters and moved on to the next event: her birthday present. My mom had wrapped all the trip paperwork inside of one box, so when she opened it up and began to read it, she kept looking over at me. "Just keep reading!" I told her. Finally, her eyes drifted far enough down to the money shot: the words Las Vegas! She stood there kind of stunned once she realized what I'd gotten her. :)
 
At that point, people started to file out to head over to Mark and Barbara's house for the "Jeannette half" of the party. We'd gotten a call from Grandpa Bob that Miss Thing's fever had disappeared and that she'd been turning handsprings in the front room, so we figured it was probably okay. Ultimately, we had about 40 people show up at the house, and much ice cream cake and yummy pies were consumed. That, and we played Rock Band until, oh, about midnight-thirty or so. :)
 
Needless to say, we were all pretty wiped out by the end. We slept in until about 10-11 am the next day, and then we got Jeannette all cleaned up so that she, Auntie Barbara and Mommy could go down for her annual birthday trek to the Build-A-Bear workshop. This year she decided to add Elizabeth the Zebra to her menagerie.
 
I took a nap while they were off playing with cotton batting. :)
 
From there, we piled back into the van and headed home. We got home around 6:30 pm last night and proceeding directly to Jeannette's birthday presents from us: a swimming dog toy, a Hannah Montana bed comforter set and... her shiny new bike! However, we found out pretty quickly that Daddy is a terrible approximater of height, as the Hannah Montana bike I'd picked out for her was waaay too big. Since I needed to do a little grocery shopping, I took the bike back in and traded it in for a Princess bike of a more appropriate size.
 
After that, the only thing left was to make up the birthday snacks for her to take to her class today, and I went a decidedly French route: small bag of sliced apples, some string cheese and some pretzel crackers!
 
We went to bed, and while the missus conked out pretty quickly, I was still wired and couldn't get to sleep until just past midnight.
 
I'm still draggin today. We need a vacation. :)
 

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