Surprise!

Friday was Ryan's birthday. So I decided to throw him a surprise party. Last year his birthday was not too fun, we were doing anchor drills in the Dry Tortugas and Mama wasn't happy. You all know the saying, if Mama ain't happy . . . So this year, all Ryan kept saying was that he wanted to have a happy birthday. Now, I know he's not much up for surprise parties, but I thought it would be fun to have his friends gather. A tradition in our house is the birthday honoree gets to choose a restaurant and we go out to a nice dinner. Ryan decided he wanted to go to Schooners, a fun, family friendly restaurant/bar on the beach. He wanted Zachary to go with us, thinking that after dinner we could let him play on the beach. He invited his Mom to go with us. Here we are enjoying our dinner.

Meanwhile, back at the hacienda . . . I had recruited D-Day and Stef to unearth my hidden decorations and prepare for the surprise. I made a surreptitious call when we left the restaurant. Here is Ryan's reaction:

Doesn't he look surprised? Too bad I now know what he was really thinking "oh, I'm so tired, I can't wait to log some couch time!"

These are the decorations. I made a carrot cake, Ryan's favorite. We had around 15 people hiding in the kitchen. Ryan was so surprised, and he did concede that it was a very happy birthday.