surprise . . . joe turned 33!

Joe's goal in life was to be married before he turned 30. In order to reach that goal (and for other reasons to) we decided to get married on March 1, 2008 just about 30 days before he turned 30. He made it right in time...married at 29. Our March/April seasons of life are just crazy busy.

I've always heard that turning 30 is a big milestone and being a newly married wife I wanted to try to make his 30th special, but the truth was, we just returned from our amazing honeymoon in Hawaii, I had my 25 birthday, I was moving all my stuff into our amazing home, we were somewhat broke, and then Joe turned 30. Luckily, my parents came through and let us go on a trip with them to Pebble Beach that year (which made up for my lack of doing something amazing)...

All that to say, I joked around with our families that maybe randomly I would do a surprise birthday for him when he turned 33. I guess I just liked that number at the time. Well, he turned 33 this year and my plan came through!

If you know Joe at all, he's a sports guy 24/7. Come to our home and ESPN will be on. He plays softball, basketball, flag football (reigning champs), etc. I was trying to figure out what would be a quick/easy set up...so I thought- let's do a sports (ESPN) theme with all his favorites represented.

I connected with our immediate families and a few of his close friends and they all came through. I got Joe out of the house with his good friend Shane (our neighbor too) to watch a RiverCats game (luckily Joe's friend who he coached growing up was pitching for the other team that day) so it was a great way to get him out of the house for the surprise!

I rushed home after church on Sunday to set up. I pulled stuff from my parents garage (old sports items from my brothers) and then ransacked Joe's stuff in our garage. It all came together in a couple of hours - thanks to my mom's help too for getting some fake turf for the tables!

I think it's the first surprise party I've ever thrown and it was a success! He was totally shocked that I could pull it off- in fact- he said it was his favorite birthday yet! I was super happy!

If you've read this far, you must just really be my friend (cause it was probably a really boring blog)...but here are a couple highlight pics (i'm missing so many good one's- these were all taken after the party by default) and one quick video- of course in the midst of the chaos I forgot to get all the details (like the cracker jack party favors, etc)...but it was a quick whirl of a weekend and it worked for us!

Take a quick look at the "golf" table, Joe's minimal hat collection, USC gear display and football table:



Judah, Joe and the Birthday song: