SURPRISE!

This Saturday was my mom's surprise party! My mom has a knack for ruining every surprise. I mean, this is a woman who guesses each of her Christmas presents (usually correctly) before opening them. She can be a pain in the butt!

Things had gone well with the planning so far. Lee and I snuck into town early on Saturday to pick up mom's cake (german chocolate, yum!). We got it from the same woman that made our wedding cakes. She makes an AWESOME cake and only charges $20 for a sheet cake! We hid it in the back of our SUV. Seemed like a good plan...

So, we are finally on our way over to Burlington for my mom's party. The problem is, my mom is always early, so we realized we were going to end up getting to the party way too early. Not good when you are bringing the guest of honor to a surprise party! So, I told Lee to drive REALLY slow on the way over.

At one point during the drive over, Lee turned a corner and we heard the spare tire go smashing down in the back of the Explorer. OH F___K. I just knew that it had landed on the cake. Lee and I just shared an "Oh crap" glance and my mom was suspicious. When we got to the restaurant, we discovered that the cake had been saved by a big bag of dog food for Lee's brother's dog. Thank goodness!

So, we get to the restaurant 20 minutes early. Man, I hope there are already people here!

There were!

My mom now claims that she knew all along that it was happening, but I don't buy it. She was surprised there at the beginning! Some of my mom's friends had brought gag gifts for her big 50th birthday. There was lots of beer drank, and someone even bought her a shot! She only did 1/2 the shot (it runs in the family), but it was pretty funny just the same!
Here are some other pics from the night:

My mom's friend Laurie (and the woman I'm named after) tries on an adult diaper that was given to my mom. Interesting story about my namesake, her name is actually Lauren Leigh. So she was pretty pumped when I ended up with a Lee.

The ladies of the family (minus a few).

The dudes of the family (also minus a few).

My mom poses with her granddaughter-to-be. She is pumped that they are going to be 50 years apart. Something about being born in a year ending with 9 being cool... I don't know, sounds like a stretch to me!