Lesleys Birthday Cake

So this weekend was Lesleys 25th birthday.  The quarter century club.  Myself and Sarah Jane took it upon ourselves to organise a surprise birthday party.  These are alot more stressful than one might think.  Organising an event is hard enough without having to keep it a secret from someone.  Problems arouse right from the beginning when Lesley asked ” Who are you texting”  to which I replied “Eh,emmm…eh…Sarah?!”  Got away with that one by saying we were discussing her birthday present.  Score!  During the week there was  closed party shops,  people telling her about the party while at another party tho Les has no recollection of this and on the day in question I actually bump into her at Tesco’s while I was buying party supplies!! FUCK!  Talked my way out of that one with “Bread, we needed bread!”

Alas none of this lead Lesley to believe there was indeed a surprise party in her honor being schemed right under her nose.  No she was oblivious to it all, oblivious that is until I moved the clothes horse!  That my friends was a step too far.  It was not the cleaning of the house, the power-hosing of the back yard hours before we had to go out, no I tidied away the clothes horse.  Mistake numbero uno!  Why did he do that Lesley thought to herself.  She settled on “He must really hate those clothes horse”.

At 7pm on Friday I took her out for our meal and she was still blissfully unaware of the many people no doubt en route to our house.  The meal went on a bit longer than we had planned, Sarah had a few minor mishaps (eg Fin left money lying around the house and couldn’t remember where) but in the end we pulled it off.

As we rounded the corner of Lealand Grove Lesley was greeted with great Surprise to all of her friends standing outside our house with a large banner wishing her a Happy Birthday.

She was very surprised and we all had an amazing night.  I am very grateful to everyone who came and especially to Sarah Jane, my partner in crime who helped organise everyone.  Despite the trauma of keeping secrets from the wonderful Lesley for a  few weeks it was all worth it just to see the smile on her face when she saw everyone was there just for her.

With all the bad surprises Ireland has had in 2009 I think 2010 should be the year of surprise parties, celebrating all that is awesome in our lives.  If you can think of a reason to party then go right ahead and if your friend doesn’t want one…well that’s a surprise waiting to happen isn’t it!

We had amongst our arsenal an actual toboggan (thanks to Cillian), black sacks (thanks to Dan) and several types of surfing/boogie boards.  I provided the camera and below is some of our mishaps, adventures and near misses.  We started out rather un-adventurous but by the end we were piling people on, breaking distances records and even surfing down (well some of the way).

First we have Cillian and Colm attempting a duo, they manage to hit some children along the way too.

As my courage grew from each attempt I finally decided to try Surfing…while standing.  It did not go quite according to plan

Next up we have the ladies who attempted 3 on a board (impressive).

Finally the lads tried to top that with 4 on board and in case you miss me saying it in the video…I wasn’t ready!

In conclusion although the snow has probably cost the country millions, made us sit in traffic for many many many hours and caused damage to our cars and homes, don’t worry about it.  Every cloud has a silver lining and this one you can slide down!  So grab the shiniest tea tray you can find…and join in the fun!