Brennan’s Big Surprise

Brennan turned the BIG 4-0 on Friday!!!!  What a geezer   Friday also happened to be the last day of school for the kids and so there was a LOT going on.  I wanted to do something special for such a special birthday so for the last few months I’ve been planning a surprise party.  Several months earlier my brother, Ryan, did a surprise party for his wife, Macy.  He rented out a bowling ally and they had a blast with friends and family.   That gave me the idea to try a similar thing.  Since Brennan was born in 1971 I thought our local roller-skating rink would be the perfect venue, so I rented it out and invited our family and some of Brennan’s friends.  The only problem is you can only rent those places when they’re closed to the public, so we had 10pm to midnight.  Partay!!  I have to say, it was a LOT of work, but in the end I had so much fun -- I hope everyone else did too. 

I told him we’d celebrate Saturday night since the kids all had parties Friday night.  Saturday night Abby had her ballet recital which gave Brennan’s Mom the perfect excuse to come up.  I’m so glad she did, I couldn’t have done it without all her help!  Anyway, after Abby’s recital we left he kids in Jamie’s care, Abby pretended to be headed to a party at the -rink and hid in the backyard til Brennan and I left.  I took Brennan to dinner and told him we had to pick Abby and her friends up at 10:15.  In the meantime, Eliza (my sister) and her husband (bless you!)  got their early and set everything up and welcomed the guests.  Brennan and I pulled up and he asked if I was going in or he was.  I quickly told him we better both go in cause the girls had their scooters and treat bags etc.  Whew, I hadn’t thought that through all the way.  Everyone was supposed to get their 70s groove on, a couple people really went all out and had some fantastic costumes.  I wish I could have gotten pictures, you can see Eliza’s fabulous dress though.  Anyway, we walked in and:

Brennan’s “surprise”

As you can see he didn’t even flinch, he did turn to me and say “exciting!”  in a monotone voice.  I think he was in complete shock.

After that I made read a little tribute that and then pulled out another surprise.  You can watch below, skip my part you can’t hear it anyway, so if you skip to 1:37 you’ll get all the good stuff.

Untitled from Eliza Thompson on Vimeo.

Tribute and Song

After all that hoopla, we roller-skated!  I haven’t skated for I don’t know how long, and I loved every minute!  We had some groovy music and races and games and it was so much fun. 

I hope Brennan got a taste of how much we all love him.  I wish more of our family and friends who live far away could have joined us, but I’m so grateful to all who did come and make arrangements for kids, and drive a long ways!  I’m so grateful Jamie was there to bring the big kids for their big moment and then take them home, take the babysitter who was home with Joshy home, and got everyone settled.  Thank you!!  We love Brennan.  Happy Birthday!