Sunday, May 31, 2009

Dan's Birthday

This year Dan's birthday fell on the same day as Rueben's farewell. I wanted to make sure he still had a great birthday even if he didn't really get to be the center of attention on his actual day. The Friday before we left to Utah my friend, Jenni, helped me throw him a surprise birthday night. I had been wanting to make him an alligator cake out of cupcakes for a long time. We had two little helpers plus hardly any time to put it together in order to get it done before he was supposed to meet us for dinner, but overall it turned out pretty good...it at least looks like an alligator!

Dan met us at a Mexican restaurant for dinner. The plan was to surprise him at the end by having the waiters sing to him and then go back to Jenni and Jason's house for cake and ice cream. About two minutes before they were going to sing to him, Jenni's little boy, Jacob, all of a sudden turned to Dan and said "Happy Birthday Dan! We made you a cake!". So, the surprise became apparent a little early but it was worth it! It was funny to see the shocked look on Dan's face as this cute little 3 year old revealed our surprise.

Anyways, we had a really fun night. Dan loved it. Thanks again Jenni and Jason for helping me throw a surprise birthday celebration for Dan!

Like I said before, Dan's actual birthday fell on Rueben's farewell. Dan's birthday also happens to be his mom's birthday. His brother, Jordan's birthday is the day before. So there are a lot of birthdays in Dan's family to celebrate at the same time. And to add to that...Kristen and Spencer had their little baby boy, Elijah, the day after Dan's and Dolores' birthday, so now there are 4 birthdays clumped together!


After the farewell, we went to the Jasmer's house to celebrate with cake and ice cream

Jordan, the youngest, got to blow out his 16 candles first

Then Dan with his 2 and 6 (we thought 26 candles might just be a little overboard...)

Then Dolores with her 5 and 2 (and we figured 52 might start a fire...just kidding Dolores!)
On Monday night, we celebrated Dan's birthday with my family. So in the end...I worried about Dan's birthday getting overlooked and he got to celebrate it 3 times! We invited Dan's two younger brothers over and played games and had treats.


We played Uno.





And watched Dan open his gifts.
Long story short, I had to trick Dan a little for his birthday. For those of you who don't know, he served an LDS mission in California speaking the Hmong language. He used to have a CTR ring in Hmong but somehow it has been misplaced. We will actually probably find it in the move tomorrow I am sure, just my luck. Anyways, all he wanted for his birthday was a new ring and he wouldn't stop talking about it! I had already planned on getting him one way before he even mentioned it to me. Well, I am a sucker for wanting to surprise people. So on the day of his actual birthday I gave him a gift card to Lowes. I told him that when I priced getting him a custom made CTR ring it was something we just couldn't afford right now, plus it would have taken too long to get it made that it wouldn't have come in time for his birthday. So instead, I gave him a $100 gift card.
Come Monday, when we celebrated his birthday with my family, I gave him his REAL gift, the ring. He was so excited! I had felt bad for tricking him but knew he would forgive me in the end once he had his ring. I have to admit though, he was quite confused about the gift card. It was really blank. I said it had $100 on it, when it really had nothing. I guess I didn't explain myself too well after giving him the ring because he thought I gave him both things and didn't realize that the gift card was fake. Sorry!
Anyways, I hope you had a good birthday Dan. You deserve it! Thanks for being such a wonderful husband. I appreciate all you do!

2 comments:

Amber Shellabarger said...

Your cake looks amazing. What kind of cake was his at the multi party. It looked yummy! Yes that is what I meant when I said there was a job opening. No news yet on what they are doing but I can keep you posted!!

Dan said...

The Alligator cake was the best cake on a birthday i've ever seen. The hmong ring was great, i did fall for the trick, but i had to fall for one of her tricks sometime or later since she always fall for mine. Love ya babe.