Birthdays In Oregon

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Wow, I am SO behind on my blog... I will be trying to play catch up for the next week or two.

So, here goes... This posting is a continuance of the posting called 'Road Trip'... that one was about our road trip with Kerianne to Portland, then Aaron Jr and me continuing on to to see Spencer and Kristi's family. Here is part 1 of our time with them...

The night we got to Spencer and Kristi's house, it was Spencer's birthday. We got to celebrate with them. Spencer is almost 2 years younger than me and he is a great brother.

Before we got to Oregon, I had suggested to Kristi that if she wanted to do some kind of surprise party for Spencer, then she could count on me to help out.

Side note: After Aaron and I got married, I threw a surprise birthday party for him every year. The first year's surprise can not be beat. There were a couple of others that were successful, but the first was the very best. Then there were a couple of duds. Just little mistakes that were made that tipped him off, but the few successes that we had were perfect.

Anyhow, that is why I thought it would be fun to try to pull off a surprise party for Spencer while we were in town. I figured that Kristi had opted not to and just celebrate as a family. And that was just great with me.

After we got to Oregon, Kristi let me know that she had a meeting for church at their house on the evening of my birthday, which was just a few days later. I was fine with that. I didn't need my birthday to be a big deal. I am not as anxious for my birthdays to come around anymore. Anyhow, Kristi made me a special dinner that night... my favorite... Cafe Rio Pork Salad. Mmm... She also made all of my favorite home made treats for her meeting that night so that we could have them for my birthday as well.

Spencer and I took all of the kids to the dollar store during her meeting and let them each pick out one item.
Here are a couple of photos of Aaron Jr playing with the toy he picked out from the dollar store. Just thought I would throw these in here.
Once they all picked out what they wanted, it was time for the meeting to be over and we could go back to their house and have a quiet and relaxing evening while eating yummy food and yummy treats.

But nope... when we walked into the house, the house was full of people. Spencer and Kristi had turned the tables on me and had planned a surprise birthday party for me instead of one for Spencer. They had invited all the people from their ward at church that I have gotten to know when I go up there to visit. This photo is one that Kristi got of me when I had first walked into the house and saw all the people. They totally got me, I had NO idea what they were up to. NO idea.

Here is a photo of some of the people who were there for my surprise party.

Aaron Jr had wanted to get me a present at the store that day, so we went to the store and Kristi took Aaron with her to help him pick something out.

He got me a colorful pinwheel and a little tree thingy that had branches that could be bent into place. We used it to hang out ceramic Easter eggs on at home this year. I loved my gift. Thanks for helping him Kristi.

And HERE are just a small portion of the yummy treats that Kristi made for my birthday party. The family recipe of sugar cookies, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, she also made chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. These are some of my very favorite home made treats. Mmm. They were scrumptious. Thank you SO much Kristi.

And here are Spencer and Kristi and their newest baby Andrew. I took this after the surprise party was over. I had to show these two who were so sneaky and really good at planning and executing a surprise party.
Okay, so i originally left this out of this posting, but I guess I need to add that within about 3 minutes of arriving at the surprise party that night, we found out that Brandon Davies, our BYU basketball center, was suspended from playing basketball for the rest of the season due to an honor code violation. It was the best BYU basketball season EVER, so this came as quite a blow and that is what all the guys talked about most of the evening... we were all pretty bummed about it. It had been a really fun season so far. That is why Spencer looks like he is putting on a really fake smile here... he was not happy about the news from that evening.
BYU did go on to get to the Elite Eight being led by Jimmer Fredette... so it was still an exciting year, but I think we would have gone to the finals if Davies had been able to play.
GO BYU! :)

Anyhow... as far as the party was concerned,
I WAS COMPLETELY SURPRISED!

Thank you Spencer and Kristi. It sure was fun!

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