It worked!!!
After a last minute planning session on Thursday night at Rock Bottom, we pulled off a surprise birthday party for Patrick's 37th birthday. Lucia Nogueda went and got the alcohol. Mindy Beigle offered her house for the festivities (including cleaning it). Jessica Moreno went with me on Sunday to pick up food. And Gaby Vega even went to Wal-Mart to pick up 'noise makers'.
Also a big thanks to those who arrived early to help Mindy out. Amber and Jason for finding the 20 wandering people who couldn't find the house (Mindy, don't forget to update your directions to your house - and you're getting house numbers for Xmas). Thanks to Jeff and Judy Berty for arriving early - shovelling the driveway and helping Mindy in the kitchen. I think Mike Raftery was involved in balloon duty, no doubt countless other people who helped pull it off.
There were many challenges to making this work that we must not forget. First and foremost was keeping it a secret from Patrick, which is not easy when we're sharing a one room hotel room. Also there was the threat of a 7 inch snow storm. Probably best of all was the call from Mindy at 7:00 (Patrick and I were planning to arrive 30 minutes later), because no one had shown up. And the SMS message from Lucia shortly thereafter saying that she was lost (along with the alcohol).
Oh yes, and I almost forgot - it was a challenge to get Patrick out of the car to actually walk into Mindy's house. The story was that we were all going out to dinner, and picking Mindy up. Of course, we were running a little late - and Patrick just wanted to stay in the car until Mindy came out. That would have been fun if he didn't even want to come in.
In the end it was a great success. A ton of people showed up. Lots of music and dancing. I think Patrick was still surprised even after we got home. He was really touched about the party, and it's something that we will both remember for some time. Click here to see all the pictures from the party.
