An Amazing Surprise

This past weekend was my 20 year High School Reunion.  Since the date of the reunion was posted months ago, my dread of the day began.  At first I thought we'd be on vacation but when I realized I was available, I had great guilt about not attending.  The fact is that I am no longer friends with anyone from HS and in my opinion Facebook has made reunions pointless.  The thought of awkward small talk, in an uncomfortable hotel ball room, was not my idea of how I wanted to spend a rare night out with Scott.

As the reunion date got closer, my guilt about not going grew.  Then one day, while hanging out at my friends house, a brilliant idea came to me.  Why not spend the evening with friends who I actually love being with??  What better way to spend my reunion evening than to have a BBQ with one of my favorite families??  Before I knew it one family became three and Scott added his birthday to the celebration.  The theme was 70s, 80s and 90s and was so much fun to plan.  The kids and I created a photo booth, games for the kids, games for the adults and everyone was to come dressed in costume from their favorite of the three decades.

I spent days planning, making an awesome playlist, mix "tapes" for each family, I gathered prizes for the games and decorated the house.  I was a bit panicked about the weather, three families inside was going to be a bit tight, but thankfully the weather cooperated and we had the use of both indoors and out.

Scott was told to have me on the back deck at 5:30 by one of our good friends.  I assumed that their family was coming as the Ghost Busters or Ninja Turtles and needed to make a grand entrance.  Boy was I wrong!

I heard car doors and then heard the sounds of a marching band.  All of sudden all THREE families, dressed as my old CHS Marching Band, came marching through the back yard.  They were led by a drum major and my school mascot, Tidey the Duck, was doing acrobatics around my yard!!  It was an incredible site to see and I was speechless as they each marched by me one by one.  I had played the tuba back in my High School days and one of my friends even made a tuba out of cardboard!!!

The surprises kept coming after that.  They presented me with a CHS T-shirt and made me a fabulous yearbook that had all of the adult friends pictures and funny quotes.  They then brought out a "This is Your Life" jeopardy game that had categories from my HS years.  They even had a birthday crown and cake for Scott and a very thoughtful gift and card for him as well.

For weeks they had been planning, chatting with my family and getting to know each other through this AMAZING surprise.  It was so wonderful and I am very grateful to the three families for putting in so much time and effort into making my "reunion" such a special night!  I had no idea that this little BBQ would turn into something so meaningful.  It was one of my favorite nights of all time and one of the biggest and best surprises that has ever been planned for me.  I am still speechless when I think of all that they did for me.  Love you girls!!

Aren't we something in our 80's ensemble ;)