mom’s 60th birthday party

apparently i am the master of surprises.

i have pulled off my second successful surprise party in the past year and a half. i did not know i had this talent in me. the first one was doc’s birthday party in las vegas in 2004.

and last saturday we threw my mom a surprise 60th birthday party. to say she was surprised is an understatement. we had been planning this since last october. 30-plus people knew about it, and somehow nobody spilled the beans! i have no idea how that happened, but i’m glad it did!

in order to get her to come up to dallas that weekend, doc had a clever idea that i tell her that i had to do a cooking demo on sunday morning, and since arushi isn’t here, i wanted her to come up and help me with it. the sticky part was, i needed her to come up on saturday, not on friday night like she normally would do if she was coming for the weekend. so we told her that doc had a sleep study thing on friday night, and that we had doctor appointments all day saturday, and wouldn’t be home until about 6 p.m., so could she please come up saturday afternoon instead.

she thought that was a great idea, and said that dad might come too, so he could see his parents, but she wasn’t sure if he’d come with her or not. little did she know, he was totally in on the plan too.

i decided to make it a dinner party, and cooked for 25. note to self: not so much pasta next time. 3 pounds is plenty for 25 people. i furiously shopped on thursday night (sam’s club, which kathryn was gracious enough to take me to) and friday afternoon and evening (party city for decorations, central market and albertson’s for the rest of the food). i had a party rental place deliver wooden folding chairs and tablecloths, because there was no way i was going to be able to collect and borrow enough chairs for everyone. i still had diane’s folding tables that we borrowed for the garage sale last may, and those came in handy as dinner tables.

bob drove in on friday night, and mike and vanessa flew in that same evening. we all met up friday night, after i had worked several hours making filling, icing, and layer cakes for the Raspberry Almond Cream Chiffon Cake (ooh la la). after they all arrived, we drove out to mercado juarez, mike’s favorite restaurant in dallas and one that we used to go to for special occasions while we were growing up. it is as good as i remember. after dinner we came back to our house, and i started work on the chocolate cinnamon sheet cake, which i decided halfway through to convert to a round cake.

i got up early on saturday and continued my cooking and also cleaning the house. doc had to work all day on a difficult project, but helped where he could, and mike, bob, and vanessa pitched in as well. the cakes turned out great, although i did have to make more custard for the chiffon cake because i used too much inbetween the layers. i improvised and created a chocolate whipped cream icing to go around the outside of the converted chocolate cinnnamon cake. vanessa made the salad; the meat sauce came together beautifully, and my focaccia bread turned out perfect.

everyone arrived on time (mostly), and dad got mom here precisely at 6:35. all the guests had parked down the street and so mom did not suspect a thing until i answered the door. she came in and couldn’t figure out why doc was taking photographs of her, and then she saw someone on the couch with another camera (julie), and then everyone who was gathered near the kitchen came out and yelled “surprise!”

she was surprised.

we had hidden mike, vanessa, and bob upstairs. after mom had started getting over the initial shock and had greeted all her friends, bob came downstairs and surprised her again. and a few minutes later, mike and vanessa came down. judging from her reaction to seeing bob, i was afraid she was going to have a heart attack when she saw mike and vanessa!

anyway, the party went great, lots of wine was consumed, and people seemed to enjoy dinner and dessert a great deal. brett and kathryn were immensely helpful with getting the pasta and alfredo sauce finished so that i could do other things. thanks, guys!

mom’s friend sarah created a huge poster-sized image of a woman on a bathing suit on a beach, and i had supplied her with mom’s glamour shots picture so that sarah could put mom’s head on this body. then she covered the whole poster with index cards containing trivia about mom, and she slowly revealed the picture as questions were asked and answered.

i’m really glad we did this. i had so much fun; i’m pretty sure i had a huge stupid grin plastered on my face the entire evening. it was really great to see both my brothers and vanessa again too.

sunday morning after the party, we woke up to rain. (i mean, real rain, where you can see and feel the drops. i can count on one hand the number of times it’s rained since last summer. we’re in a severe drought.) mom and dad took us to brunch at blue mesa grill. what a feast! it was only $16 and included free juices, champagne, and mimosas. i’ll gladly go there again. it was so nice to be out in the rain, too.