Surprise!

Despite the center piece, Phil doesn't have a thing for Elmo.

Phil gettin' down to Boys II Men

The men folk singing

Phil and I doing a stunning rendition of "I'll Be"

I can't believe we pulled it off. Phil's birthday is next week and I have been wanting to a throw a surprise party for him forever. However, I am not a party planner. Being in charge of all of the details gives me anxiety. I'm always afraid that no one will show up or there won't be enough food or that people won't have fun. Fortunately, none of these things happened last night. I enlisted the help of our friends the Parkers. Our apartment is too small to host so many people, and they have a gorgeous home, plus they have a sweet karaoke machine (which Phil LOVES to do) and Alex and Phil are good friends so it was easy to lure him to their house. I absolutely could not have done this without him. I nearly blew it a few days ago. I had been getting responses from everyone about the party to my email and one day Phil called me from work and asked me to read an email he had sent me. I told him I didn't see one from him and he said it's there I just saw it in your inbox. I freaked out and was like, "you saw my email!" He was surprised and said it was no big deal, was I trying to hide something from him? So that set off a red flag. Then a few days later I was talking to Phil about an acquaintance of his that I was thinking of inviting to the party. So I asked him if he would ever like to hang out with so and so. To which Phil replied, "no, don't invite him to the surprise party." I was floored. I asked him how in the world he knew and he said I asked too many questions and the whole email thing. I started to cry and was really upset that it was ruined. BUT, he still didn't know when or where it was. Luckily for me, he didn't even consider that I wouldn't do it on his actual birthday so he was still surprised.

Alex had it all planned out how he was going to get Phil to his house. Earlier on in the week Alex called Phil and asked him if he would go and make some church visits with him on Friday night and that afterwards they would have us over for dinner. It just so happened that the Celtics were playing last night and so Phil came up with idea that we could all watch the game together. Perfect. Alex asked Phil to pick him up from work and they would just go to the appointment together, but first they stopped at Alex's house where we were all waiting to surprise him. Alas, there were no actual visits. Phil was totally clueless. Even after he walked in and saw all of the balloons and streamers he said he just wondered why they had decorations up (we were all hiding around the corner.) He was really surprised and asked if this meant he was going to miss the Celtics game. Silly Phil.

We ate tons of food, played a game of jeopardy with questions all about Phil, had cake and ice cream and then topped it all off with a serious Karaoke session. Phil definitely walked away as the star. Everybody was so impressed with his skills. I'm so glad it turned out so well. I really could not have done with out our friends, they helped SO much.

Happy Birthday Phil!! I love you!!