My sister just had her birthday this week. Her boyfriend (Mike) tried to call me a couple of times this week. After a little phone tag we finally connected and he began to lay out his grand scheme of surprising Trista for her birthday. As circumstances would have it, her birthday fell on a Thursday, after she would be finishing a long shift at the hospital. So Mike's ideas was to have a surprise party on Friday instead.
We thought it would be a great idea except that the party was scheduled to start after their date ended, around 8:30 pm or so. Since our boys go to bed at 8:00 pm that posed a little problem for us to attend at Autumn's house. So, with a little texted messaging, we arranged to host the party at our house.
Then on Thursday evening I get another call from Mike. He wants me to call up my sister and "set the stage" by asking her if I could ask Mike to come over tomorrow (Friday) to help me move something. Then he would have an excuse to come over and bring the cake. Then he would say that he forgot his coat and would come by and "pick it up" and SURPRISE, there would a party all ready to go. He gave me specific instructions as to when to call Trista, what to say and everything. So I played along.
When I called Trista that night I wished her Happy Birthday. We talked about her day at the hospital and how she wasn't doing anything special that night (all by Mike's design but unbeknownst to Trista). I asked the appropriate questions and Mike happened to be there too so I talked with him. We even went through a whole dialogue for Trista's benefit. And we were ready to go.
Friday evening we're told that Mom was expected at 8:15 so that if she arrived late she'd still be on time. Larrisa was on the ball and got mom out of the door in order to make it at 8:00, right on time! Well they were the first to arrive so the go to help decorate. Cheyenne managed to make it just before 8:30 and help put the finishing touches on the preparations. Then we got "the phone call" asking if Mike could stop by and pick up the coat he had left earlier that day (he had never actually come over at any time). Of course we were still up and thought that would be just fine.
The plan went perfectly! Apparently the day had some interesting weirdness to it, none of which had anything to do with us so we found out about it later but it sounded quite fascinating.
It was great. Trista is so good natured that she loved the fact that everyone had worked so hard to have this party for her. We were set to play games and have cake & ice cream. In the end, reliving the day and the subtleties of the plot won center stage. Trista was certainly impressed with the great effort put forth in her behalf. A few more of her friends arrived and we talked a lot, were entertained a little and laughed the most.
In the end we just wanted to wish Trista a happy birthday. I'm impressed that Mike coordinated this great effort with our family, especially since I've only met Mike on one other occasion. It was great.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRISTA!
