Monday, July 21, 2008

Happy Birthday, Brenda!!

It's my friend, Brenda's birthday today and I totally forgot about it until this afternoon...this was after she ate lunch with me in my office...What a slacker friend!! I did leave a voicemail for her later on apologizing; she'll forgive me, she's nice like that...

I had remembered her birthday last week because every year I make Brenda's favorite cake, angel food, from scratch (this is the 11th year). She feeds my ego and says it's better than Publix...and Publix makes some good cakes. So as I am sitting here waiting for the angel food cake to finish baking, I am reminiscing about the 40th birthday party we threw for Brenda a few years ago and I thought I'd share. (Note to self: multi-tasking by reading my daily fill of blogs and mixing make the time go faster...it seems like it takes forever for those little peaks to rise!)

Anyway, one day a couple years ago in early July I was daydreaming on my ride home from work. I thought to myself, "self, Brenda's birthday is in a couple weeks and I think this year is her 40th". I know that we hadn't gotten any invitations, hadn't heard anything from our girlfriends, etc. I left a message for Brenda's husband, Peter, to call me back regarding the status of any celebration he was planning. Well it turns out my calculations were right, Brenda was turning 40, but Peter hadn't thought of any plans yet. We made a deal, the girls and I would plan a party and he would pay for it. I think his guilt about not having anything planned yet for the birthday was catching up with him 'cause he didn't even implement a budget. Silly, Silly Man! So I contacted the "group" and explained the situation...all hands on board we started to plan. The thing I like about my position in our group is that I get the credit for being the creative one...little do they know I steal ideas from all over (seriously, I do give credit where credit is due).
We decided to throw an "All about Brenda surprise party". We planned to have her favorite foods, drinks (Cosmos), etc. As a diversion tactic, on the day of her actual birthday, we ordered her to be "flocked" by a local company called the Merry Minstrels so she woke up with 40 pink flamingos all over her yard with a sign that said, "You've been flocked! Happy 40th Birthday, Brenda!". She asked all around for who had "flocked" her, but no one admitted to doing the deed.
In preparation for her party, we enlisted the help of her sister to get those "awkward years" photos from her Mom for decorations. We proceeded to pick the most unflattering pics we could find and blow them up as wall portraits and masks. The 6 of us who planned the party wore t-shirts with a very unflattering picture of Brenda in rollers on it with saying like: Brendalicious, My hero, Glamour girl, Aren't I sexy, etc. Here's an example of one:


The night of her party, we had Peter tell her that she needed to get dressed up because he was going to be taking her out. Meanwhile my friend Sheila and her husband Alan had agreed to go "kidnapping". The put nylons over their faces, broke into Brenda's house, blindfolded her and tied her up. They took her out to their car and turned up the music so she couldn't hear anything and headed out to the party.
When she arrived, we were all prepared to meet her at the door.



This is Alan & Sheila escorting her to the door:


This is a picture of Brenda's chest; I was laughing so hard, I couldn't hold the camera straight:
That was Peter's gift from me...


Anyway, we all had a great time, but most importantly the birthday girl had a great party all about her...by the way, we finally admitted to the bird thing on her lawn by telling her "Flock You!"






4 comments:

Angie's Spot said...

That is awesome! I threw a huge surprise party for my hubby's 3oth a few years ago and it was so much fun. He was TOTALLY surprised and I loved finally getting one over on him. What great friends Brenda has! :-)

Kelly said...

I know, right?! I have to keep reminding her of that!! :)

Jennifer said...

That party sounds amazing!! She's lucky to have you guys for friends! Happy Birthday Brenda!!

Sara said...

That was the best story! So crazy!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!