30th Birthday Luau Style

Scottie turned the Big 3-0 February 15th.  I had always wanted to throw him a big surprise party so I thought this would be the perfect year!  

**Note to self: DON'T PLAN SURPRISE BIRTHDAY PARTIES WHEN YOU ARE 36 WEEKS PREGNANT!***

You want to talk about stressfull?!?  Not sure what I was thinking when I decided that it would be a good idea to plan a surprise birthday party for Scottie when

#1 I was on a severe, hormonal and emotional roller-coaster pregnant

#2 I had just found out I had gall stones (MEGA OUCH) and had to completely change my diet

#3 I'm really horrible at keeping secrets

#4 This party took place 3 1/2 weeks before my due date

But....I pulled it off!  It was a great success overall.  Just had some minor problems along the way.  I never could have done this completely by myself, so I had a good friend from church helping me.  She helped plan, cook and decorate.  Blood, sweat and tears went into this party....Literally!  She was at the church decorating the day of the party and I hadn't got off work yet when she dropped a fold-up table on her foot and fractured it.  She just kept right on along though.  She wouldn't leave to go to the Dr until after the party was over.  Crazy girl!

Back to the party.  I wanted to do something fun and creative.  I was thinking about some kind of football party, but that would only be fun for Scottie and football season had just ended.  I contemplated a cookout, but hellooooo.....it's February.  Then it hit me!  An indoor Luau!  Perfect!  We absolutely loved our honeymoon trip to Hawaii so I knew Scottie would love it, and we could bring a little bit of summer to the cold dreary days of February.  I bought all kinds of Hawaiian decorations like grass table skirts, mini tiki torches, seashells, leis and blowup palm trees.  I had several of our pictures enlarged from our trip to Hawaii and bought cheap frames to put them on every table.  I asked Scottie's mom for pictures of him growing up and made a collage of his life from birth up until now.  I had his baby picture put on the cake.  Scottie's brother is a fantastic cook so he fixed us pork BBQ (I wanted a whole pig with a small pineapple in it's mouth but it was a little out of the budget).  My uncle fixed his famous baked beans and a friend fixed potato salad.  We bought a bunch of tropical fruit and made a fruit tray with dip and of course we had a cake and cupcakes from the best bakery of all time, Fancy Pastry! 

The fun (hmmm, maybe fun isn't exactly the word I should use) part was trying to keep this all a secret from Scottie (and Caden for that matter!).  I had items shipped to my work so he wouldn't see party supply stuff.  I had to hide the invitations in my car and hope he didn't go snooping.  I stole borrowed his cell phone to get his friends phone numbers so I could call and invite them.  I called one of his co-workers to see who he is friends with at work so I could invite them too.  The day of the party I went in to work late and left early to decorate.  I was standing in Wal-Mart printing pictures when Scottie called me.  I had to act like I was on break and was praying they didn't come over the intercom with some message like "Attention Walmart shoppers, Blue Light special on aisle 14".  (Don't think I've ever actually heard that at Walmart or any store. I guess I got that one from the movies.  LOL)  Then, he called again later that day after I had left.   I had instructed my co-workers to tell him I was not available and I would call him back.  Then they called me to tell me he called.  It worked!

The next dilema was getting him to the church on a Monday night without telling him why we needed to be there.  We ended up telling him that our singing group was going to practice that night.  We usually would grab something to eat before practice but I told him I had to run by the store after work so I would just meet him at the church.  Then, I didn't want him to get there too early, so I had my dad call and ask to meet him at a local guitar shop.  I knew that would keep his attention for a while.  But guess what?  They were walking around looking at everything and some guy that works there said they were getting ready to close.  Daddy kept stalling until they started turning the lights off.  So he texted me and I told him to take him somewhere else but don't let him eat.  He told Scottie they should go to the doughtnut shop and just have a doughnut and some coffee but Scottie said he wanted to go to Subway for a sandwich.  My poor dad tried really hard, but Scottie was determined to have a sub.  So they went to eat and they pulled into the church parking lot at just the right time.  I knew Scottie would be suspicious because of all the cars outside but I was just happy to make it that far with a secret.  (He later told me he just thought another church group was having some kind of function.)  He unloaded his guitars and started walking up to the front door.  Never had a clue until the door opened!

He was SO SURPRISED!!  I had everyone gathered around the front and we all yelled surprise when he walked in.  I think it took him a minute for everything to register.  He just kept smiling at me and I know he was thinking "how in the world did she pull this off without me knowing". 

This was the cake/dessert table.

 

The best cake in the world from the best bakery in the world!  The plates to the side were filled with colorful cupcakes and I wrapped the plates with some fake flower leis.  The coconut says "Just Maui'd" and has a painting of two fishes kissing!  We got that in Maui on our honeymoon.  The other coconut that looks like a monkey was bought in Hawaii when Scottie's brother and his wife celebrated their 10th anniversary over there.  If you zoom in on the picture collage at the top towards the middle you may be able to see Scottie as a young boy wearing a CAROLINA TARHEELS t-shirt!!

(Sorry honey, you know I had to broadcast that one!  All your Duke Puke friends are throwing up a little in their mouths!)

This is the fruit end of the food table.  We put the fruit dip in pineapple halves.  The pictures were taken in Maui.  Aren't those the cutest little tiki torches?!? 

I brought a Hawaiian shirt for Scottie to wear.  I had him a really pretty blue and white lei too, but he put it on his mom.  He's getting ready to blow out the candles.  (He actually let Caden do it). 

A party in the Speer family just isn't a party until Heather (Scottie's sister) smashes cake in the birthday person's face!  He chased her the rest of the night trying to get her back.  I don't think he was too happy about the whole thing though.  ;)

Get ready people.  I do not know why I'm even gonna post this one.  I guess it's good to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes!

Wait for it.........

Wait for it........

Here it comes!

OH. MY. WORD.

 

It's the BIG KAHUNA!

There I am in all my 'extra large grass skirt-Scottie's large hawaiian shirt-flower leis everywhere-36 weeks pregnant and about to pop' glory!

It was a great evening and we had a lot of fun!  I never could have pulled it off without a ton of help from a lot of great friends, so "Thank you" to all my peeps-you know who you are! 

I'm so glad I did it...... but may never do it again!