Surprise 60th!

Over the weekend we had a surprise birthday party for Paul's Dad to celebrate his 60th birthday. It was quite the operation... we decided to have the party on Saturday (Dec 13) even though his actual birthday was on Friday (Dec 12). We figured that the only way we were going to surprise him was to setup a decoy birthday dinner on Friday and pretend like nothing else was happening. We went out to dinner on Friday night to Outback and actually had a really fun time (not that we expected anything different - it was just a little stressful keeping the secret and not slipping up accidentally!). Dad got a birthday sundae and his gifts and had no reason whatsoever to expect that anything would be happening the next day.

We rented the hall at the Sportsmen's Club for the party and invited all of his friends and family. Kim and I spent a hectic morning cooking and picking up last minute items and then we finally headed over to the club to setup the room and decorate. Paul's Mom, Judy, Joe, and Garrett (our volunteer DJ) also pitched in to help during the party prep (thank you all!). We used a "Casino Night" theme and had a bunch of game tables setup where the guests could bet (using fake money we provided).


We scheduled everyone to arrive early so that they would be there before Dad. Paul ended up bringing the guest of honor to the party... he picked his Dad up that evening with the excuse of going Christmas shopping, and made up a fake reason to need to stop at the club to pick up some calendars. We setup a scheme with the bartender at the club so that she would send them both to the back room when they came in to ask about the calendars. It all worked like a charm! He opened the door to the darkened and silent room only to have the lights come up and hear everyone yell, "Surprise!" followed by "Celebration" playing over the sound system. Although Dad says he was completely shocked and surprised and had no idea that we were having a party for him, he really must have a poker face because when he opened the door, he was relatively calm as he surveyed the room full of family and friends:

Overall it was a great time and we hope that he truly enjoyed his party! View more party photos here.