we gon' party like it's yo birfday

My sister has a way of capturing the epitome of who I am in photos, and I thought this would be an interesting visual as you imagine me talking via my blog. Simply put, this is how I tell stories:

I'm pretty level headed and calm

until the good parts

(that's when the tones, facial expressions, and hands cannot be contained)

This general rule also describes my escalating attitude as I prepared for this party.

every day the week before the party

the day of the party
Perhaps I was a tad bit excited and on edge about the whole thing.

I love surprises, aight?

Obviously Colby is less than amused...

hater.

Before I get into the juicy deets of Colby's surprise party, I want to give a ginormous shout out to my favorite middle sister, Kiara, and her husband, Deveren, for hosting such a fantastically fun party and for doing everything they could think of to help me make it a success.

There's absolutely no way I could've pulled this off without you two and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your help. You're always there to volunteer your resources (house, dishes, food, games, etc.), your time, and your talents (thanks, especially, to Dev for the cake and to Ki for the pictures!) to help me with whatever crazy idea I bring to the table. You're incredible and I love you guys.

Special thanks, also, to Daniel (for spreading the word),

Katie (for helping me iron out the details),

and Laura (for educating me about the process of creating a facebook group).

This is how it all started:

I was sitting at my desk at work thinking, "What could I do for Colby's birthday?" I immediately went through a few of the stereotypical possibilities: Nice night on the town? He doesn't have time for that. Candlelight dinner at home? Been there, done that. Kidnap him and take him to another play or, perhaps even a musical. Meh, not set on it. Then it finally hit me! Horseback riding. How perfect! So that's what I decided to do.

Oh wait, no I didn't. Colby hates horses.

Eventually it occurred to me to throw a surprise party. But how would I go about doing that? Who would come? How do I keep it a secret? What kind of food should we have? What will we do once everyone gets there? You know--party questions. So I called Katie and Kiara and we worked everything out as far as the party was concerned. Then I worked out the logistics and constructed the cover story.

I decided to have the party the weekend before his birthday because I figured he wouldn't expect a thing, especially after a few misleading comments (about having something planned on Monday) made by yours truly. About a week before, I talked to Laura about creating a facebook group, worked some magic, and it was officially deemed, "Top Secret Par-tay (of epic proportion)." Fierce.

That's when I recruited Daniel so that he could add all of the people on the guest list (yes, I'm all about exclusivity) that I wasn't already friends with on facebook. I figured it would be way too suspicious if I became friends with all of Colby's friends all of the sudden.

There were a few people, however, that no one other than Colby was friends with on facebook--a couple of wardies, some mission buddies--that sort of thing. So I drafted a lovely facebook message with all of the party information and sent it off to a handful of strangers who had no idea who I was. Awesome. Honestly, them not knowing me wasn't the concern. The concern was that I had sent messages to the wrong people. After all, I'd only heard Colby drop their names once or twice and I was praying that I remembered correctly. What's life without a little risk of embarrassment though, eh? So I risked it. The messages varied, but they generally started out a little bit like this:

Dear so-and-so,

You don't know me (that's always a classy way to start a facebook message, right?) and hopefully I've got the right [insert name here] (you served in Fresno, California with Colby Crabtree, yes?). If that's you, please keep reading.

Here is an excerpt from my favorite response:

Talyn, thanks for doing this for Colby; it sounds like you're really on top of things (not an innuendo about you and Colby). Unfortunately I won't be able to make it to Colby's party on Friday. . . . Give him a big, wet, slobbery birthday kiss for me though, and tell him I said "happy birthday, sasquatch."

Friends. Ya gotta love 'em. But seriously--this kid is going to be my friend within the month. Guaranteed.

Moving on. About this same time, I talked to Colby about our plans for the next weekend (and almost had a heart attack when he hesitated). Turns out we had nothing going on and I told him, "Kiara and Deveren invited us over for dessert and I told them that weekends would probably be best so that you can do homework and study during the week. How does next Friday work?" Making it sound optional was the first trick. Why would he suspect anything if these plans were flexible? That was my logic, anyway. So we planned on dessert night and the window of time was officially booked.

The next issue was figuring out what to get him for his birthday. Curse you, holidays! You're cleaning out my reserve of ideas! Anyway, I had a idea that I thought was thoughtful, surprising, and functional and I decided to look into it a bit more. First step: call Kristy (Colby's mom).

I called Kristy and told her that I wanted to get Colby's bike for his birthday. Yes, he already owns one--but he didn't have it. Last summer he stuffed it in a box and shipped it off to the home of his dad's cousin in Utah so he wouldn't have to lug it up here in his car. Once he got to Utah for school, all he had to do was pick it up.

Well, it was the end of February at this point in the story. . .and I figured it was about time to relieve said cousin of the bike. Not only that, the weather has been so fantastic this "winter" that he could easily start riding it before too long.

Needless to say, the idea was a win-win for everyone. Kristy got some contact information for me, I made some calls, and my fantastic sister (maybe you've heard of her? Kiara . . .) took her SUV to pick it up. My brilliant plan went through a rough moment when my extremely helpful dad tried to put the bike together and pieces were missing. Lovely.

Ultimately, after feeling a decent degree of stress, my dad stuffed it back in the box and my wonderful mother took it to a bike shop to have them put it together. Brilliant. It worked out perfectly because the tires on that bike were completely bald and Kristy wanted to buy Colby new ones for his birthday, so we would've ended up at the same place anyway. Long story shorter, by the next afternoon (aka the day of the party--hence the stress), the bike looked as good as new (we would end up having to switch out the tires, but that's a minor detail).

Here's how the actual day went down.

530am: I woke up and started freaking out (truth be told I was freaking out for at least two days), so I sweat off the excitement with Jillian

730am: I went to work and had to focus extra hard

4pm: I finally finished at work and phase one began.

Phase one:

I texted Colby about getting together because we were going to go to dinner . . . but it was too early and I didn't want him to think we should go back to the apartment before heading to Kiara's. Because my brilliant plan was potentially at risk, I lied. I said that I had a late lunch and wasn't hungry yet. When I went over to his apartment I made some comment about buying new socks (because my current socks have holes in them), and Colby suggested that we go find me some socks. Yay for running errands! (But seriously . . . I like them and it was the perfect excuse to keep my mind busy and not so eager.)

Phase two:

I lied--again (forgive me, Colby)--and told Colby that Ki and Dev were on their way home from Salt Lake and that they'd let me know when they got home between 7 and 730. In reality they were at home briefing the party-goers about the proper execution of the surprise, but now I had two things: (1) an excuse to keep looking at my phone, waiting for a text or call from my sister and (2) a guaranteed turnout of people before Colby and I actually showed up.

Meanwhile, Colby and I were still running errands. We bought athletic socks for him at Out-N-Back, regular socks for me at Target, and we bummed around Staples sitting in office chairs and staring at the million different kinds of pen options (maybe there were only 999,999 because they didn't have Colby's favorite pen). Universe 1, Colby 0. Obviously running errands is pretty normal or else the red flag would've gone up in Colby's mind by now, but he still had no idea.

One major contributor to his less than suspicious behavior was the fact that, after dessert, Colby and I were planning on picking up his friend Ian in Salt Lake. It just so happens that Ian was already in town (another surprise!), but we didn't want Colby to know that, so Ian made up a bunch of excuses and lies and eventually I ran with it and told Colby that we could easily pick up Ian after we left Kiara and Deveren's.

Yeah . . . surprise guaranteed.

After our lovely stop at Staples, with no pen luck, we went to eat at Cafe Rio. In an effort to keep Colby hungry in anticipation for the party, I attempted to eat my entire salad so that he wouldn't eat whatever I had left. That plan turned out to be self-sabotage because I wasn't as hungry later and it didn't really work because afterwards Colby said he was full regardless. Oh well. Ya can't win 'em all.

Kiara gave me the green light and we were on our way. Everyone had followed instructions perfectly and parked in the church parking lot across the street, but Colby flipped a U-turn to park on the opposite side of the street and I was worried that he'd recognize some of the cars in the parking lot. No such luck.

I made as much noise as possible closing my door and talking so that they would know we were close (and someone would start recording with the hidden camera). We walked in, I stepped aside and sat down to take off my shoes, and we chatted with Deveren who was casually laying on the couch while Kiara finished up whatever she was doing in the kitchen and walked into the family room. For a second, I honestly thought that maybe no one was there. It was so quiet and there was absolutely no sign that anyone else was around.

Kiara must've said a code word--dessert, maybe? And a handful of people jumped out from the hallways on each side of the family room.

Kinda like this--but different

A split second later, that number tripled and everyone came out of the woodwork and Colby's face was priceless. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of people popping out of nowhere and the video we set up didn't quite serve its purpose because Colby stepped right out of the frame just before everyone jumped out. Bummer. But even so, we were all there and we saw it first hand.

The look on his face was a combination of stunned surprise and confused panic. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was the look of utter shock. To me, that look meant success.

Phase three:

The festivities commenced and everyone alternated between hugging Colby, laughing at his reaction, and eating food. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I remember that we had chips, salsa, fruit, vegetables, dip, drinks, muddy buddies, oreo balls, and s'mores with Reese's (toasted with love over the stove). Everything was hidden so well that when we walked in, nothing looked party-esque, but in one minute there was food everywhere. It was amazing.

Here's a taste of what happened from there:

friends bonded

some more than others

and the closeup

the studs strutted their same-shade apparel

Then Colby opened his presents.

Ki and Dev got him a remote-control car (that he can also control with his iPhone)

and fierce stickers to wear on his cheeks during his intramural football games.

Not pictured: my mom and dad got him first aid kits (both for his apartment and car), cereal, candy for the automatic candy dispenser (a Christmas present from Ki and Dev), and a meat tenderizer. They may seem random, but they all have their own significance.

Lastly, he got his bike back.

Not that it was a surprise or anything . . .

My adorable nephew Brek was just having a really hard time keeping a secret, so from the moment Colby walked in the door he started saying, "Bike, bike!"

Lucky for us, Brek had a bike of his own to show off, so that covered our tracks a little bit. And Colby hadn't imagined that I'd arrange for his bike to be picked up and put together, so he was genuinely surprised.

Success, yet again!

Then we got down to business, turned on the Xbox Kinect, and let the games begin!

Tim thought it was a good idea to do some warm up dance moves before his turn playing Just Dance 3, and I'm pretty confident that no one was complaining.

Here's the play by play:

the birthday boy struttin' his stuff

the other competitors

Then, after hours of anticipation, he blew out the candle (just the one--we're going green)

on his awesome birthday cake

and a few sugar-crazed souls sucked the frosting off of the licorice trees until their tongues turned green.

That was, of course, the only decent way to wrap up such an event,

so we left it at that.

Happy birthday, Colby--

from all of us!

Oh but wait! There's more.

Three days later, on the day of his actual birthday, we went to dinner at P.F. Chang's

and I gave him his other present.

I'll give you a hint:

That's right, folks! We're going to see a pre-showing of Hunger Games on March 22 at 6:10pm.

Do you know what this means?

-Assigned seats (aka no waiting in line)

-No waking up the next day with only 3 hours of sleep under your belt

-Potential prizes

-And knowing how the movie is before just about everyone else

Booyah, baby!

One last time:

Happy birthday Colby.

I hope it was a good one.