this has been TERRIBLY hard to keep a secret. you have no idea. when i get excited about something it is hard for me to keep it to myself. i had to refrain from blogging my secrets of this surprise to the entire internet (well, those select few who actually read my posts ;). we wanted justin’s 21st birthday to be extra special. soooo, his sister chelsea decided we should surprise him at school. he was taken a summer class at the time and wasn’t home. he was extremely bummed that no one was going to be around to celebrate this milestone event. it broke our hearts even more when we had to tell him we couldn’t visit him that day because of other “obligations”.

mannn. he must of thought we were terrible people haha. why would we miss this monumental birthday?! anywhooo. we had been conspiring and decided to surprise him at work (in the library). picture this if you will: a group of loved ones carrying gifts with balloons towering above them. we creeped into the library beaming with smiles hoping he didn’t see us right away. we made it close to the desk before he glanced up. at first his face depicted no emotion, but if you looked close enough you could start to see the formation of a tiny smirk. we were successful. he was surprised and all the secrets and fibs were worth it!

we went back to his room to open his gifts and then we headed out to buffalo wild wings for his first legal drink. it was such a fun experience. i think chelsea and i enjoyed his birthday more than he did. he tossed down drinks with silly names and made memories he’ll never forget (if he can remember them in the first place ;). thanks to his mom, dad, chelsea, and granny for making the night possible. 🙂

his first legal drink as a 21-year-old!

his pretty balloons, new bow tie, and card made by my cute kiddies at school!

that was surprise #1. little did he know we had another trick up our sleeve. i was planning on a friday night celebration with a few of his close friends. he just thought it was going to be me, him, and his sister. i knew he had a slight idea that there was something planned, but he didn’t know exactly what it was. when we got to dinner he was greeted by an attack/hug from one of his friends. yay! another successful surprise. we got a private room to ourselves, well, for most of the evening. right at the beginning we had another table of people in there. the lady was “deathly” allergic to our latex balloons we brought in. i mean, they were on the other side of the room. not like we were rubbing them on her face or anything haha. anywho, she left pretty quickly so we had the room to ourselves. it was a fun evening and just a nice time with friends.

here’s the gang!

some good lookin’ peeps!

awwww! nice melon colors! 😉

my sad attempt at a self-timer shot haha.

will i ever do a surprise party again? probably not for a LONG time. they’re so stressful. it’s hard to keep a secret that is that exciting! haha. luckily i could talk about it at work and my wonderful friends there didn’t mind listening.

i hope you had a wonderful birthday, justin! <3