The Hintons: Surprise!!!

Last year, I remember Lance mentioning that he has never had a surprise birthday party and that he secretly always wanted one.

I've been trying to think of what to do for his birthday for weeks. (His birthday is November 23rd.) It's hard to shop or plan something for someone that says they don't need or want anything. Suddenly one day, I remembered his comment the year before, and I decided to try to throw him a surprise party. So I quickly sent a mass message out on Facebook asking who would be available and willing to be a part of it. I only had two people respond that they might be able to come, but only if it was at certain times.

It seemed like too much work and effort, so I changed my mind and decided not to do it. Then last week, I was talking to our friends in our ward, and they said they would love to come and help out in any way possible. I changed my mind again, and decided to throw a party.

Lance's birthday happens to be the day before Thanksgiving this year. I figured that since there is no school that most people would be going home and be unavailable to have a party that day. That left this past Thursday (Nov. 17th) as the only other day we could do it. A bit early, but I figured it would only add to the element of surprise.

Because of everyone's school and work schedules, we couldn't start the party until 9:30pm. Plus there was a league at the bowling alley, so we wouldn't have been able to start earlier anyways.

A few days before, I headed over to Cold Stone to get Lance a cake. Their cakes are ridiculously expensive, but I decided to splurge this once. And boy was it good! There was two layers of chocolate cake, a layer of mint/oreo ice cream, and a layer of cookie dough ice cream. Yummy!

On the day of, while Lance was in class, I got all his decorations, balloons, drinks, plates, cups, etc. from the dollar store. I put everything in the trunk except for the balloon, which I put at a friends house.

When Lance got home from class, apparently something was hanging out the trunk because he opened it and saw everything inside. He came in saying, "Is there something in the trunk that I wasn't supposed to see?" I merely shrugged and didn't say anything. He later said he figured it was for something the next week, on his actual birthday. So luckily it didn't ruin the surprise.

Savannah Robb

That night, after Will was asleep, I told Lance I needed to run to the store to grab a gift for a friend. Instead, I hurried to pick up the cake from Cold Stone, then went to the bowling alley to set up decorations. Meanwhile, Kasey and Ashli went to our house to kidnap Lance. Amanda showed up at the same time to babysit Will. They pretty much told Lance that he was going with them. When Lance asked where they were going, they told him, "Don't ask stupid questions!"

The happy couple who kidnapped Lance.

Lance's "surprise" face.

He showed up at the bowling alley to a group of his friends. There were 4 couples there, plus Lance and I: Beka and Kyle Hamilton, Tom and Savannah Robb, Ashli and Kasey, and Sara and Josh Beck. I thought it was a pretty good turn out for throwing it together last minute.