Surprise parties

This week we've had two surprise parties, and both for people who had their birthday two or three months ago. The first party was for Jackson, whose birthday was May 1st. He talked about having a party but did nothing about it, so Mom and Bridget took action. They told Logan to ask Jackson if he wanted to go bowling Thursday night before Logan went back to college. The plan was for Jackson, Logan, Bridget and Dad to show up at the bowling ally around 7:00, and have Jackson's friends waiting there to surprise him. When me, Mom, the twins and Sonja came at 6:45, the place smelled faintly of smoke and was swarmed with people 3 feet taller than me. Logan called saying he left food in the crock pot, which was code for "We're almost there." We hid behind bowling ball racks and had Nick stand near the door to signal us when they came in.

When they walked in we jumped up shouting  "Surprise!", only to have Jackson think it was a going-away party for Logan. Well at least he was surprised. The little girls and I went home after that to tidy up the house. When everybody came back to our house they seemed to eat anything and everything. They devoured the melting ice cream cake, cupcakes, popcorn and pizza, while I had a bowl of ice cream in the other room. I went to bed shortly after that, but judging by how tired Jackson was the next day, I'd say he had a good time.

The other surprise party was for both Annie and Michaela. It was a surprise tea party at Mary's house, and Annie and Michaela were told that it was just a tea party, not for their birthdays. and they didn't suspect a thing, seeing as there birthdays were in May and June. Although one difficulty about having a surprise party for two people is the element of surprise, since they wouldn't be showing up together. So Mary cleverly devised the plan of playing hide and seek. Annie and Michaela would be the seekers and we would hide inside, so when they walked in we would pop up from our hiding spots with party hats and kazoos, then start singing Happy Birthday. The next thing to figure out was how to keep one of them from going inside to use the bathroom before the other one showed up. We made all sorts of crazy plans about telling them that Mary didn't have any running water so they used their neighbors bathroom, but they were gone they would have to just wait, and that she was using bottled water for our tea. But thankfully when Michaela arrived, she didn't need to use the bathroom. Annie was half an hour late, but when she came Mary promptly told her that because she and Michaela were the last ones to arrive, they had to be the seekers. ( Me, Emily, Lydia, and Sofia purposely came half an hour early.) When we surprised them they were adorned with party hats, doll sized straw hats and birthday girl crowns, all of  which Annie delicately balanced on her head. We all merrily drank Irish breakfast tea and ate an assortment of little sandwiches and "Bulgarian soggy cucumbers" which were hard to eat when pretending to be a proper young lady. Annie got an ginormous owl mug, and Michaela a winking smiley face. For dessert we had a little platter of chocolates and Mary's butter cream cup cakes which were rumored to have cheese in them. Sofia and Mary blew on their kazoos until they drove everyone crazy, while Annie and I made yo-yo like things with our party hats. In the end when Mrs. Friederich picked Emily and I up, I was reluctant to leave. I'd have to say that was the best surprise tea party I've ever been to. 
-Emma Rose