Dan's Surprise 40th Birthday Party

 I've been planning Dan's surprise 40th birthday party for months!  When Megan made her volleyball team and we got the schedule of her tournaments, I set the date that we would have his party - and only told Megan about it!  I looked at a couple of different venues, but Heather (and Mark) were super helpful in securing their clubhouse for us to use!  My goal was to have it just be a get together with our friends from Kuwait that now live back in this area (Maryland, DC and Virginia) who we love, but never get a chance to see!  

I made up the invitations and sent them out via Facebook messenger to all of our friends and then had a few of Dan's friends let others know at work :)  I shopped and stored things at Grammy and Grandad's.  Megan helped me plan things and shop and drop off things at their house, too.  

The day of the party, I had told him that we were going to Mark and Heather's for dinner with my family.  Megan "asked" if she could go to a friends' house beforehand and I "agreed" to drive her over, then run to the mall, then pick her up and "meet" Dan at Mark and Heath's!  Really, we ran by Giant, picked up his cake and ice, drove to Grammy and Grandad's and made the salad, loaded everything in the car and drove to the clubhouse and got everything set up and ready!

Our friends started arriving around 6pm - Karen and Paul and their kiddos helped get things set up (which was so kind of them), Brad had agreed earlier to be in charge of the music and brought that and set it up and then everyone else arrived!  

Heather and Mark were super kind to "pretend" to have the dinner at their house (which is a street away from their clubhouse) and told Dan, Jack and Kylie (who didn't know anything about the party) that they needed help grabbing some chairs from the clubhouse!  They walked in (Jack saw Mr. Brad and Kylie saw Kent as they were walking in) and we surprised Dan, Jack and Kylie!  *Kylie isn't great at keeping secrets and we figured it was easier to not tell Jack, since he would be with Dan and it would be hard to not spill!

He truly was surprised - which makes sense since his birthday isn't for another 2 weeks, but we have volleyball for the next two weekends!  It was a great night to see all the families that we haven't gotten to see in a long time, meet new babies and see how big kiddos are getting!  There was lots of coloring, glow bracelets, mustaches, bubbles and basketball playing from the kiddos and lots of catching up from the adults!  Dan gets to see most of the guys still, but he doesn't get to see the families, so it was so nice to see everyone together!  I kept telling our friends that it was just an excuse to get everyone together...and to celebrate Dan :)

The back of our van!

 Beverage station

Soda, Water, Juice boxes, Guinness, Yuengling, Laguntas Pilsner and Hop Hog IPA

 Decorations

 Appetizers (we also had Papa John's pizza and salad)

 The two party planners!

 Kiddos playing with the ring toss

 Rough games of basketball

 "Campout" in the bathroom with their glow in the dark "campfire"

 So cute!

 Dan's cake

 Being sung to!

 Claire and Kylie

 Me and my Birthday Boy

 All the adults!

Ben, Sarah, Claire, Paul, Karen, Zac, Cara, Sawyer, Barb, Me, Dan, Eric, Ben, Brad, Sam, Mat, Gen and Jon

 Our Family

 A Cigar from Barb

 So cool

 Me and my Birthday Tweeter

And the girls at the end of the night!


Opening very sweet and amazing presents at our house from people who know him so well!
Cigars, cigar holders, cards, gift cards for video games and restaurants, a knife and all the ingredients for his favorite queso, including the crock pot to make it in!