Surprise!

This month was my husband's 40th birthday and we celebrated in a variety of ways.

I had decided a few months prior that I wanted to surprise him in some way.  I knew he didn't want a party, which was fine with me because I really didn't want to organize and host a party.

What I came up with was a series of surprises throughout the month.  This included things like basketball tickets to a local, but major college (given to us for FREE from a long time friend, thank you!) as well as some of his favorite foods: a 12 pack of Coke Zero (we don't drink a lot of soda in our house), a bag of Doritos (we don't eat a lot of name brand chips around here either.  Sometimes when my husband is working nights, we'll treat ourselves to a bag of Doritos but the kids and I end up eating the whole bag and my husband gets nothing so we thought he'd appreciate getting his own bag as a gift!)

We also gave him 40 Hershey Kisses one day (I put them in his lunch bag so he could be surprised when he packed his lunch that morning) and another day we put a bag with 40 hearts it in and on each heart we wrote something we thought of when we think of him, such as "courageous", "provider", etc.

On his actual birthday, we met him for lunch at Chick fil A and brought a few delicious cupcakes that my daughter's friend made for us.  That night, we had a special dinner that my husband picked out: Beef and Chicken Kabobs, marinated and grilled with loaded baked potatoes and more cupcakes for dessert.  We gave him 3 presents: a MacArthur Study Bible (in large print cause he's 40!), an American Flag to replace the old one we had hanging outside, and a coffee mug with pictures of important people in his life.  

The biggest and best surprise occurred the next day.  My husband came home from work early, at my request, not suspecting a thing..... We already had the car packed and when we all got in we just told him to start driving.... It wasn't too long before we had to tell him where we were going.... We were headed to Charleston, SC to visit our good friends!  We love going to see them and my husband had been asking for months when we were going back.  I knew there was no where else he'd rather be than with his very good friend and his family to celebrate this big birthday!

I'm a bit tired from Thanksgiving, Christmas, both kids' birthdays, completing our Homestudy, having 2 interviews about children to potentially adopt, all the while planning and executing these birthday surprises.  But it was also a lot of fun and I love being with our friends in Charleston too, so it was all worth it!

On a side note, my husband does NOT have to feel that he has to compete with my surprises for my 40th birthday next year.  All I want is to go on vacation somewhere with my family!