With Micah’s 40th birthday approaching, I had to figure out how to celebrate. Micah is the kind of person that would never ask for a party but would love it if we had one. But he couldn’t know about it in advance because he would worry about if it was going to be fun enough or if there was going to be enough food or if people were going to like the food. Oh, and there needed to be an activity because Micah doesn’t like to sit around.
There was only one solution that could account for these many variables. A surprise party where he couldn’t fret about details in advance. And the party needed to focus on an athletic activity that most guests would feel comfortable participating in…
And that’s how my idea to host a (surprise) backyard volleyball tournament was born.
We have a rectangle section of turf in our backyard that is almost regulation volleyball court size, and I’ve been wanting to get a net ever since we moved in over a year ago. This was the perfect reason to make it happen.
Micah didn’t suspect a thing because we were actually hosting his grandma’s 90th birthday the weekend of his party. Her birthday was a few weeks away but the best dates for everyone to fly into town happened to fall on the weekend before Micah’s birthday, so I cleverly hid the event within this family festivities. All of his siblings and cousins got to be there to celebrate him, and then I invited about 20 of our close friends (and all their kids) over too.
The beauty of overlapping with his family event is that he kind of planned his own party unknowingly. About a week before the party, he asked, “Should we get a bounce house for all the little cousins?” “Sure,” I responded casually, thankful he was bringing up an idea I had already considered, even though he didn’t know an extra 20 little kids would be coming over on Saturday. When the packages arrived with the new volleyball net, I just let them sit out in our living room. When he asked about them, I just said, “Oh, I got a volleyball net. I thought it might be fun to set up when your family is here.” Since we had to buy so much food for the weekend, the chips, drinks, and buns I bought for his party just blended right in. It was so nice to plan a huge surprise party and keep all the details hidden in plain sight.
Everything was set for the perfect afternoon. All of our closest friends were able to come. The weather was sunny with a cool breeze. The party was going to start at 3:00, and I scheduled a catered BBQ dinner to be delivered at 4:00 after we got round-robin games started.
Now the only question was… could we pull off the actual surprise???
[to be continued…]
