It All Started on a Friday Night

This post is taking an entirely different direction than I thought it was going to go, but that's okay! More fun this way!

Several weeks ago, I got an email from a church north of Fort Wayne asking if I could speak at their women's dinner this year. I was happy to do that and began working hard on my message for the evening. Ryan, of course, was planning to come with me, take pictures, run my Power Point...all of it!

Well, a few days before the event, he told me he had bad news: he wasn't going to be able to come with me after all. He said he had something that he had to do for my birthday gift and that was the only night it was going to work out to do it, and I didn't even ask a single question about it.

See, here's the thing. I love birthdays, and big birthdays are especially huge for me. So I told him I did not care for a minute what he did for my birthday, but I just wanted something special. And I didn't want to know what he was planning, because I'm not a spoilsport that way. So once I found out he needed the night off for birthday related reasons, I gave him my blessing and called the conversation done. I didn't want to know more!

So Friday afternoon, I packed up the car and drove to the church, which was about two hours away. I had a gorgeous day to travel and found it with no problem.

I don't have many pictures of the evening, because my photographer was on birthday duty! I didn't know any of the ladies at the church (other than the one I'd been corresponding with about the evening) and felt kind of odd asking strangers to take pictures for me, so I just have a couple of quick shots I grabbed before everything began.

We had a great time, though. Delicious food, great fellowship, and the ladies were kind and attentive as I talked. I hope they got a nugget or two to take with them!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I did not know that my gift was a surprise party and Ryan stayed home to actually assemble the party! WHAT?!?!!??

He and a whole team of my friends and family got together at the church where his family hosts all their parties, to put up a tribute to my almost 40 years on this planet! (I still have a week left, so I'm still 39.5.) Oh my goodness. They all worked so hard. So many decorations, so many details, so much work! (I felt appropriately guilty about all their hard work, but when I found out about it, I also thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it!)

I can't wait to tell you more about it! (We'll be talking about it on the podcast tomorrow, so definitely come back for that!) Ryan went all out and hired a photographer to take pictures for me, so it may be a while before I have those, but I can still tell you the story soon...and then I'll show you the pictures when I get them!

And that's the tale of a Friday night in Shafferland!