Another Surprise!

Sunday MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

My wonderful, delightful, loving husband turned 80 recently.

Now that’s a BIG number in years!  I wrote about the surprise party I did for him on his 70^thbirthday (please see my post of October 9, 2016 – Surprise – Part 2).  But since both of our daughters and their families had come to Florida for Christmas, I didn’t feel comfortable asking them to come back in February for their Dad’s birthday.

However…both girls started comparing calendars when they were here at Christmas, to see how close they could get to Fred’s birthday and have everyone be here together.  A few days later, Janet called to say that the weekend before his birthday would be the only time both of them could come.

And so the planning started.

Now you must know that it very difficult for me to keep a secret!  I just love to be able to tell juicy tidbits to any and all.  And this would require me to keep the secret for six weeks!  And, in the meantime, Fred informed me that he didn’t want me to plan anything special for his birthday!  I readily agreed – since I wasn’t the one doing all the planning! That worked out well.

In this stage of our life, Fred and I are together a lot.  We are retired from the workplace, and spend a lot of time together.  And we enjoy it.  However, when it comes to stealth, that’s not a good thing.  Just about the only time I could talk to the girls was on Wednesday nights, when Fred was at choir rehearsal.

Janet’s husband, Tom, found a resort condo to rent where both of their families could stay for a couple of nights.  Karen and her family needed to fly back home on Sunday, but Janet and her family would not leave until Monday afternoon.  They stayed with us that Sunday night.

The girls had a full day planned, since the only real day they would all be here together was on that Saturday.  They wanted to start with breakfast at Cracker Barrel.

Credit Google search and Cracker Barrel website

I enlisted the help of a couple from our church, Bob and Aileen, to surprise Fred. They “invited” us to have breakfast with them at Cracker Barrel that morning at 8:00!  Fred was clueless.

Bob and Aileen

We arrived just after 8:00 a.m. and Aileen was there to greet us and lead us to the table.  Fred was TOTALLY surprised to see his family sitting at the table when we arrived there! Here is a short video that Janet took on her cell phone as we arrived at the table.  You can see the surprise on his face.

He said later that, if it had been the Saturday after his actual birthday, he might have been suspicious, but since it was the weekend before that, he had no idea what was planned.  There were 11 of us around those tables.

When we told the server that it was Fred’s birthday, she brought out a HUGE piece of Cracker Barrel’s famous Coca Cola Chocolate Cake – topped with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream!  And that was after we had eaten breakfast!!  No one else at the table even wanted one bite of it, so Fred and I polished it off!  Whew!

                                     Credit Google Search and Cracker Barrel website

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years

Tags: Birthday Surprise, Turning 80