It can now all be revealed! Jo and I have been busy planning some surprises for our Mum's 60th birthday. We've been very sneaky sneaky!
The week began on Monday 20 October, her actual birthday. She had been staying at Bob's (her man!) house for the previous 2 weeks, as he's been quite sick so she's been nursing him. She arrived home after lunch, mucked around her place then thought she'd grab a quick nap before she had to head out that evening.
As she was starting to drift off, the phone rang. It was her brother from Melbourne. He was doing the usual chatting thing when he asked what she was up to at the moment. She said not much, just lying on her bed. He said, well get up cause I'm just pulling in your driveway! So that was the rest of her afternoon sorted! Uncle Wayne and his wife, Margaret, said they were calling in on their way up to Auckland, where he was heading for a conference.
Mum left later than normal for her evening at bridge. I know this as I passed her going along the road! Luckily she didn't see me!
I headed over to Tauranga after work on the Monday, to open the house up. 3 of her 4 brothers and Nana were coming to visit for her birthday, but she didn't know about any of it. The 4th brother couldn't get a passport and time off work. Turns out that was a lie! This 4th uncle would be Wayne that was already in the house when I arrived! Luckily I'd borrowed an extra airbed, so we had enough beds!!
So when Mum arrived home at 10.45pm, there was Uncle Mark, his wife Barbara, Uncle Wayne, Aunty Margaret, Uncle Tony, Uncle Brett, Brett's 12 year old son Uri, Nana and myself. She didn't know this when she first walked in, as we'd all moved our cars down the road. I gave away a little because I left my bag in her room, knowing that's where I would be sleeping there.
She eventually ended up coming into the lounge where we were all waiting. She was shocked! Firstly she saw Mark, Barbara and Brett. Nana and Uri came out of the dining room, then Tony and I came out of the kitchen. We like to stagger our shock!! She was speechless until we were almost asleep after midnight, when she said thanks for the surprise! How little she knew....
Barbara, Brett, Wayne, Mark, Tony, Me
Margaret, Mum, Uri, Nana
Tuesday morning Mum had a badminton tournament at Mt Maunganui. Of course we found out the location and took 2 car loads of us there to cheer her on. She wasn't overlly impressed that we all turned up, especially when they all sang Happy Birthday to her as she came off the court! Even as we walked in the door, someone said "oh that must be Sue's family!". Were we that obvious??!!
We left her to the rest of the tournament and headed to the supermarket for supplies. What a mission! Have about 8 of us wandering around, trying to make decisions. We ended up with a trolley full of stuff and ended up with only 1 dinner!!! Goodness! One thing we got was a birthday cake for Mum. OK, it was on special and was just a normal cake. Any cake can be a birthday cake if you put candles in it!
Cutting the cake after "blowing" out the candles
Unfortunately, we didn't have any candles, so straws did just the trick!
Our other ingredients we bought were for Mum's new Thai bbq she got from Uncle Brett. It was heaps of fun, just having this thing cooking all the time with heaps of yummy food.
Mark, Wayne and Nana cooking on the Thai BBQ
In true Lyons family style, we played dice every evening. If you check the score book, you'll see 3 names over the whole week - Uri, Mark and myself!! oh yeah!
Wayne, Mark, Nana, Barbara, Mum, Tony
We all hung out for the week together, even though Wayne and Margaret had to leave on Wednesday, as they didn't have the whole week off. Jo also managed to get Thursday and Friday off work, so she arrived Wednesday evening.
Having a reminiscing moment with old photos
Silver Service - Nana and Wayne (Bob in the background)
Bob had booked Mum for dinner on the Friday evening well before all these guests arrive, so we said it was fine for him to take her out. He did manage to pass the whole family test, so he probably deserved it! We decided to go out for dinner too, seeing as it was everyone's last night. ;-)
We left a couple of mins before Bob arrive to pick her up. When they arrived at the restaurant (Zeytin on The Strand), they came around the corner to 40 of us standing there, who then broke into a lovely, broken version of Happy Birthday to You! I thought her jaw would actually hit the ground, it dropped so low! She explained to me later that she just saw a huge group of people in a haze. The first person she recognised was Uncle Tony, who was standing at the back. Slowly she started to recognise everyone in the room.
I had managed to go through her address book in September to get all her friends' contact details. I did only get the ones I'd heard of, so I'm sure I did miss some people, but 40 people is a pretty good turn out! Zeytin didn't do too badly with handling everyone's meals, seeing as we didn't go for the set menu option!!
Group shot of most people at the party
After the family left the next morning, I asked Mum if she had actually heard or worked out any of the surprises, and she said she had no idea! She got a little suspisious on Friday evening, as she thought that Bob would insist she hang out with her family instead of going out with him for the evening, as he believes in families first. But Mum had a head cold all week, so she didn't think too much further about it - luckily for us!!
It was such a buzz organising all this for her. She's in disbelief that she deserves all the fuss and special treatment. She's great! Go Mum!
