Jade's big 3-0.

My honey turned 30 this year! I wanted to do something really special for him... but what? He's not really into parties, and he is almost impossible to surprise. He is always doing things for other people, so I really wanted to organize the perfect birthday for him. When we went on our cruise 2 years ago with Jeremy and Kristin, he became obsessed with the FlowRider surf simulator. He's been dying to do it again sometime. There is only 1 FlowRider in Oregon, in SunRiver (a little vacation town about 4 hours away from Portland). I decided to rent a big house and invite Jade's best friends and their wives to SunRiver for the weekend, with the main event being our group having the FlowRider to ourselves for 3 hours. I was SO excited about this plan. It was perfect for Jade. Low key, not too many people, and doing something he loves. Everyone was going to be able to make it, and everything was reserved and ready. 2 weeks before the big day, Jade busted his kneecap playing church basketball. Panic ensued. I didn't know what to do- cancel/reschedule the whole trip? But everything was already arranged, and the house was already paid for. Go anyway but have Jade not be able to ride the FlowRider? Wouldn't that be depressing for him? After a few tear-filled conversations with my mom (I don't do well when my plans get ruined) and a good conversation with Justin and Jeremy, I decided we would still go, we'd still have a super fun weekend all together, we just wouldn't rent the FlowRider. It would still be a great time.

I needed to make sure Jade wouldn't plan anything that weekend, so in the beginning of January, I had his brothers plan a fake trip to Arizona for the 3 of them. Jade was really sad when he busted his knee, and they "postponed" their trip. I still needed him to be free, so they told him they would still be getting together that weekend, just locally. Jeremy originally thought Jade was a little suspicious of the "Arizona trip", so I decided to help sell the story a little bit by getting into a fight with Jade about him leaving again (don't worry- it wasn't a big fight, more like a little nagging). I told him that Jeremy had called me and asked if we had plans the weekend after Jade's birthday, and when I told him "no", Jeremy said that was great because they were going to take him to AZ for the weekend. I told Jade that I felt backed into a corner, like I couldn't say anything without looking like the bad guy. I told Jade that I thought he had known about the trip for awhile and was just keeping it all secret from me. That is when Jade immediately dropped all suspicion and actually believed the story. He started getting a little defensive (rightfully so) because I kept implying that he was in on the plan. He was so insistent, and even offered to watch the girls for one weekend, if Ashley, Kristin and I wanted to go on a trip of our own. My [kind of mean] strategy worked! He was off our tail!

The big day came, and I had the whole surprise planned out. He left work early to "meet Jeremy and Justin at our house for their surprise lunch". When he came home, Peyton was already at my friend Stephanie's (where she spent the weekend), but I told Jade she was at a play date. While he was "waiting for Jeremy and Justin" he was inside the house, and I had all our bags in the bed of his truck, where our friends John and Katie snuck them into the back of their SUV. Jade opened the garage to work on a project, and Katie was standing by her car in the driveway (he didn't see John). I told him that Katie and I were going to lunch together. Meanwhile, John snuck up behind Jade and was wearing a hilarious costume. Jade laughed so hard. He had no idea what was going on, because the 2 of them had just worked out together that morning, and John told Jade he had a busy work day. John also asked him what his plans for the weekend were (just fishing around), and Jade was absolutely clueless! He said he thought he was going to do something with his brothers; lunch Friday and maybe doing their airsoft guns on Saturday. John said he was positive that Jade didn't have the slightest hint about the surprise. So Jade wondered what John was doing at our house, and we told him that what we were really going to do was go out to lunch, the 4 of us (and Piper). I said his brothers were going to have him most of the weekend, so I wanted to do a little special lunch with him before he left. Then we started driving toward SunRiver. We kept talking about where we were going to stop for lunch, and eventually as we were getting pretty far on the other side of town, Jade wondered what was really going on. So we told him that because his brothers postponed their trip, I felt bad and planned a little weekend getaway, and John and Katie were able to come, too. We didn't tell him where we were going, but as we passed Salem, he guessed that we were going to Eagle Crest, where Justin and Ashley have a vacation home (it's close to SunRiver). Once we passed the turn off to Eagle Crest, he guessed where we were really going. We got to the house, and Jade started commenting about how it was nice, but really big. I played dumb a little bit, and told him that it didn't look this big online. Kind of sad, but he believed that I accidentally rented a 16 person house for just the 4 of us. Katie sent the boys to the grocery store for some last minute supplies for dinner, and Justin, Ashley, Frank, Lacie, Jon and Ellen all arrived. We had them hide their cars, and hide in one of the bedrooms. When the guys got home from the store, Katie and I had decorated the house with some birthday decorations, and I said "Surprise, Jade!" Then I told him that I brought his real birthday present and had hidden it in the house somewhere. I told him to go find it. He started opening doors and things and when he got to the right room and turned on the light, everyone yelled at him! He was literally stunned. I thought he was going to cry; he was a little choked up. Not too much later, Jeremy, Kristin, JaNea, Nipper, Trevor and Brittney all showed up. We had a big dinner and then we played a Jade BINGO game that I had made. Everyone also wrote something they love about Jade on one of his school pictures. We had cake and ice cream and stayed up late hanging out. Saturday everyone slept in, then mostly everyone went to the big gym that is in the Village. Then we just spent the day at the house; playing games, sitting in the hot tub, playing ping pong, watching a movie, napping, etc. It was so nice and relaxing and fun! That night we had dinner at this Italian restaurant, then went to an old fashioned chocolate/candy/ice cream shop and got dessert. We stayed up late again and enjoyed being child-free (except the babies). I had a great weekend, and I know Jade did, too. Really the only thing that could have made it better would have been if we could have done the FlowRider! I was so happy to be able to pull off a huge surprise for him. He certainly deserves it. Happy 30th Birthday, babe!

Had to take a picture of all the cute pictures I had blown up:

This was when he was looking for his present. I'm pretty sure he was saying "Is this going to be something super gay?"

If I would have been thinking more clearly, I would have had someone in the room have the camera.

Piper and Layla

Dinner