SURPRISE!!

I had the best weekend I've had in a very long time. This past weekend, we went home to Virginia for my parents' surprise anniversary party. On December 17, 2007, they celebrated 30 yrs of marriage, but with having a new baby and all of the craziness of the holidays, my sisters and I were not able to organize ourselves to have a party for them until this past weekend. It was so hard to keep the party a surprise--as we were planning and people were RSVPing, I wanted so badly to tell them, since I talk to them every day and it seemed natural to our conversation. Of course, I never let out a peep about it, nor did my sisters or my parents' friends. That we were able to maintain the element of surprise was an accomplishment in and of itself :-) We held the party at a local bed and breakfast called the Kenmore Inn. The atmosphere was lovely, the food was pretty good, and the company was phenomenal! My dad's mother and brother (as well as my aunt and one of my cousins), 2 of my dad's high school buddies, and one of his lifelong friends made the trip from the NY/NJ area. My mom was surprised by several of her coworkers/friends, and of course, our usual family friends from Fredericksburg (who are really like our extended family) also made it for the event. We lied (naughty naughty) that we were going to have a nice family portrait to include Jose and Moises at the Kenmore Inn. Thankfully, they took the bait and got all dressed up!!! Everyone says that I should have seen my mother's face when she first walked in and started recognizing people's faces!!! I wish we had had a video camera to capture that moment. After a lovely dinner, we had a champagne toast, and Valerie and Johnny gave lovely toasts. We had a slideshow of pictures from my parents' years together, some pictures were serious, some very funny, set to the music of my parents' song and another song that my mother really loves. I think I saw some tears in my mother's eyes! Afterward, we had cake. One of our family friends (Eileen) made a beautiful wedding cake. I will have to find pics (I have asked people to email me pics--we were so busy with the details of the party and the boys that I wasn't able to take any pics). It was gorgeous! She made the most beautiful flowers to adorn the cake, and she said she spent 3 days trying to get them just right. We did have a bit of dancing toward the end. All in all, I think my parents had a good time, which was the most important part of it all!

The next day, we had everyone over for lunch, which became dinner. We all had such a great time catching up. The boys got to meet several family and friends they had not met, and our good friends in Fredericksburg got to meet Moises in person. I have to say that I had such a good weekend that I was very sad to leave on Monday morning. I've been a bit weepy off and on since I've gotten back to Louisville, but I know that I'll be seeing my parents and sisters again soon for Jose's graduation in Charlottesville :-)

I will post pics when they become available.