Brought To You By The Number 30

Friday was Clay's 30th birthday. He is the most amazing man! Love you, Love!

Clay chose little tapanyaki place for dinner. Dinner was delicious and we really enjoyed the show that our chef put on. We especially loved the flaming onion volcano and when he flipped the eggs and lemons around.  

Zane loved the show too!

Clay thought that all we were doing for his birthday was going to dinner. Last year we did absolutely nothing for his birthday since we had a week old baby. I had even written his card a week before Zane was born since I knew that I wouldn't get it done after the birth. This year since he turned 30 and especially since we didn't do anything for his birthday last year, I decided to throw him a little surprise party.

I know that Clay prefers small gatherings to large groups of people, so I decided to keep things small.  I passed out invitations to a few of our friends in a sneaky manner at Zane's party last week.  The invite told them to come to our house in the evening and that I would bring them things to bring to the party.

I made a trifle, Clay's current favorite dessert (other than cheesecake). I made a banner that said "Happy Birthday Clay!". I got some party blowers, and I picked up a couple of balloons. I passed all of the party supplies out to friends in the couple of days before his party. After we got home from the restaurant, I put Zane to bed, then put a sign on our front door telling the party guests to wait for everyone to arrive, then to just walk in. I was going to have them knock on the door, but I decided it would be a MUCH bigger surprise if they just walked in!

When people started walking into our house, Clay freaked out. It is a good thing he left his shotgun in Monticello last time we were there. It took him a few moments to realize that it was his friends heading up the stairs. Needless to say, he was definately surprised and a little bewildered. I'm so glad I was able to pull off surprising him! It was fun getting to hang out with friends and eat some trifle!

I didn't get very good pictures. I tried to get him surprised, but I waited a little too long. I was worried that I would tip him off if I was poised with camera ready. You can still see the confusion on his face in the picture I did capture, though.