Best. Birthday. Surprise. Ever.

Blown away would be an understatement.  I naively thought I was going to lunch with my mom and stepfather Jim on Saturday.  Unbeknownst to me, my mom planned a surprise party at my favorite restaurant (Choices by Shawn) and had Jeff's family and my whole family in attendance.  My dad, stepmother Rita, Meghan, Lori, and her husband, Ben all flew in. 



Hands off, they're mine...all mine!

 Mom arranged everything with the restaurant and reserved one of the private rooms in advance.  Not to mention she pre-ordered my favorite dish, Gnocchi and made sure it would be gluten-free.  Walking in to the restaurant and seeing everyone at the table was pretty spectacular.  I had the ugly cry going on for a minute or two.  Family means the world to me and I absolutely love that they wanted to be here to celebrate my birthday with me.

I couldn't ask for more.  It was perfect.  Being together for a happy occasion.  Being with family.  Having us all in one room at the same time.  This is what it is all about.  I am so blessed to have such an amazing family.  I love them so much.  

To be able to pull a surprise over on me is pretty cool too.  They did it.   Looking back, I can tell now how close I came to blowing the surprise for myself.  A few days prior, I received an email from my local Let's Dish announcing that they were closing as of July 1st.  I wanted to dish one last time and booked the sesson for Saturday, showing up to dish anytime between 11:30am and 1:00pm.  Behind the scenes everyone was freaking out over this when word got back to them on what I had done.  My sister Lori tried to convince the people at Let's Dish that they needed to call me and tell me they were overbooked for that time slot and I'd have to come another time.  They didn't want any part of that lie.  It wasn't until Thursday evening that my mom said she was really looking forward to going to lunch with me on Saturday.  Without any kind of questioning from me (which is quite rare!), I called Let's Dish first thing on Friday morning and asked if I could change my session to that Friday evening after dinner.  They said yes.  I originally didn't chose the Friday time slot because I was getting up at 4:00am the next morning to meet my friends for a 9 mile run.  But since my mom said she'd help me, I knew we'd be in and out super fast. 

I still can't believe they came. I thank my lucky stars I am related to them.  What an amazing day it was.



Yep, this picture pretty much says it all.