The Plunketteer's: We Pulled it Off!!

The planning of my brothers 40th birthday surprise party has been in the works for over 2 months and I am happy to say he was truly surprised, I can't believe it! I was just hoping he was going to show up, I wasn't even concerned if it was a surprise once it got closer. And I was pretty sure that even if he did know about the party he had no idea that our parents came home early from Florida to be here! He was definitely surprised to see them!!

Back in February we started discussing dates, we knew we had to factor in the weekend he had the kids and pretty early on we knew he had a trip planned to Chicago. His actual birthday was April 14th but that was the weekend he was going on his trip (or so we ALL thought!) so we planned for the 21st, that was also my excuse to get him out to our house was because I wasn't going to see him on his birthday and I wanted to make a nice dinner and do cake and ice cream. On Monday, April 9th I received a frantic phone call from my dad that Brian wasn't going to Chicago the weekend he originally thought but he was going to weekend of the surprise party!!! My stomach was in knots so I immediately called his business partner & best friend, Mark, to figure out what we were to do. It turned out he was leaving Thursday and coming home on Saturday (the day of the party) so he would be home. Than, I spoke to him on the Monday before the party and he was sounding unsure if he was going to make it, with all the driving to & from Chicago and than driving all the way out to my house he just didn't want to commit 100%, I stayed calm, or so I seemed. Again, what was I going to do? So, I made it clear to him a few days prior that I really wanted to see my nieces & nephews and that I really wanted A to see them too. The other issue was timing! I had everyone coming at 4:00 but was really having a hard time judging what time he was going to be here. Ended up I didn't need to worry about him showing up too early because on his drive home from Chicago he stopped in Michigan City, turned the car off and couldn't turn it back on. The valet in Chicago never gave him the key fob after returning the car to him so he had to wait for 2 hours for them to drive the key to him. At that point he was livid (to say the least)!! I was so worried he was going to get here and be in an awful mood!

Waiting for the guest of honor!

After pacing for about an hour and a half they finally showed up, he went downstairs to see A and there were all of his friends and family to surprise him!!