surprise!

speaking of last weekend, i completely forgot to blog about the surprise party that heath threw for me! i turned the big 3-0 on saturday, and thought we were just going out to dinner. here's a rundown of the events:

friday, i had a make up class for the mlk day holiday. after a long day and a long week, i got home around 9:30 pm. heath met me at the door and was grinning all weird while i took off my boots and coat. i finally asked him what was wrong with him, and he said that i had a birthday present in the living room. i look over to my right and see jessie, one of my dearest friends, sitting on the couch! i was beyond surprised, as she live waaaaay up in duluth and i hadn't seen her in over a year. it was so great to see her and catch up.

saturday morning, we got up and the three of us walked over to starbucks (a luxury jessie no longer has, what with living up in the boonies). we chatted and stopped in the pet store on the way home to ooh and aah over the puppies and bunnies and kitties. we meandered back to the apartment and plugged in a movie. the door buzzed unexpectedly, and i thought it might be the ups guy with a package i was waiting on. heath went down to see and when he came back upstairs, my sister and ron were with him! another surprise! it was great to see them, and we all sat around and chatted a bit. i figured they all just came in to go out to dinner with us.

we decided that us girls were going to head out to a local fabric store to browe for whatever and then go see slumdog millionaire. when we got to the theatre, the garage was all trafficky and i was sort of inclined to just go home. i asked the girls how badly they wanted to see the movie, and jessie, who is typically VERY laid back quickly and forcefully expressed how strongly she wanted to see it. weird, i thought, but let it pass. we watched the movie and then headed back to the apartment.

when we got there, it was all decorated with birthday stuff and heath's brother luke and his girlfriend rebecca were there. what a surprise! heath had gone to a lot of trouble to plan this all out as a surprise. he was a tad disappointed that people weren't there on time - most folks showed up about 5 min after i got home, but it was still a great surprise. he got food catered from portillos and arranged the whole thing, even ordering a cake from bennison's. he and mindy also put together a slide show of pictures of me growing up, which our friends found very amusing. turns out i have the same hairstyle as when i was three. seriously. eventually, we got out our catch phrase game and played that, which is always a lot of fun.

it was a great time, and once again, heath managed to surprise me - something people can rarely do. i am a very lucky girl to have a fiance that cares so much to go to such lengths to plan a celebration for me. it was great that so many of our friends were able to join us as well, especially those that came from far away. thank you thank you thank you! it meant so much to me.