Cheers to 30 Years!

This past weekend was spent SURPRISING my husband for his 30th birthday!

Friday started off a little rough. Bad days all around. My baby started with a runny nose and not quite feeling herself (which now has turned into another rash and another trip to the allergist). I spent the morning packing the four girls and golden boy’s stuff to take for the weekend. I planned a surprise party at the in-laws house. My husband called and said he might have to work Saturday night (of course this would be the one weekend). Luck on our side, he didn’t have to and off we went!


Saturday, I gave him the “day off.” He spent the morning hiking with his dad, brother, and two brother-in-laws, in Paris Mountain, Greenville. And then they went to the brewery, Birds Fly South, and next to Willy Taco’s-Feed & Seed.

Meanwhile, I decided to finally tell the girls what we were really doing! I made sure not to tell them before, because I knew that they’d get too excited and let it slip. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t! Most of the party prep I had shipped to the in-laws before, but I still needed to pick up a few things.

Total Wine for liquor and beer: Whiskey, Bourbon, Brandy, Scotch 

The Whiskey & Cigar Bar

Henry’s Smokehouse: BBQ

Publix: Flowers, fill the GIANT balloons I ordered from Amazon, last minute chips, buns, veggies, cookies, pretzels, drinks, and ice

My mother-in-law made her mac-n-cheese, and slaw (which taste nothing like slaw and was amazing), and some sweet tea.

24 Hour Slaw

3 lbs. Chopped Cabbage

1 Large Onion

1 Green Bell Pepper and 1 Red Bell Pepper Chopped

Combine slaw ingredients in a large bowl. When vinegar mixture has completely cooled, add to slaw, mix well and refrigerate for 24 hours. 

BRING TO A BOIL:

1 3/4 C Sugar

2 C Water

2 C Apple Cider Vingar

2 t Salt

2 t white (or yellow) mustard seed

1 t celery seed

Let mixture completely cool before pouring over slaw! 

You might want to do this step first because it takes a while to cool down!

Enjoy!

Make ahead and then put in fridge!

I had a cake made by Cakes to Dye For ( I also used her for the Puppy Paw-ty cake). It was a chocolate cake, with layers alternating layers of cake and brownie, with a cookie dough filling. OH MY GOSH. Talk about amazing. I think she named it, “Death by Chocolate”. I wanted it to be all of my husbands favorite things. I also had her make cupcakes, chocolate chip with a chocolate buttercream icing. 

So the boys had a boys day, my MIL and older sister and children bought and set up, and my little sister was on boy duty when they got home to make sure they arrived at the party on time. Well the boys had a lot of funnnn....and then decided to go get more beer and have some more fun... then to lounge in the shower for a bit. I had everyone come to the party between 5 and 5:30 and 6 pm rolls around and still no boys. I had told my husband that we had reservations at 6 pm and that he’d need to swing by his MIL to pick me up, since I dropped them off so that they could babysit the girls. Finally at 6:15 they all show up! I think the alcohol helped add to the confusion or at least helped him not to care as much that they were late and that none of the plans really made sense for the day! But he was surprised and that’s what counts!