Pat's 30th Birthday was Oct. 1st, 2011. I decided to throw him a big surprise bash!
Guests arrived early, so we had welcome drinks for them!
While Pat was out playing golf with his Dad, Travis and Vlad, Pat's Mom and I were making sure everything was ready to go.
We had the party at Leeuwkop Golf Club in Johannesburg. The decor was all red and white (OU colors).
Every one arrived on time and hung around waiting to surprise Pat. We even had a prize table set up for the top 4 winners of the game - "How Well Do You Know Pat?" Our prizes were mainly from America - with Kraft Mac and Cheese, Ibuprofen and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups topping the list! (Can't get that stuff in Africa)
Pat called me on the phone...everyone was quiet. He told me to come pick them up, they were done playing. I said, "okay, on my way!!" He had no clue what was going on!
Everyone hid quietly inside and Cody, Travis and Vlad somehow led Pat to the party room...
SURPRISE!!!
We had a champagne toast and sang "Happy Birthday!" Everyone mingled and then ate dinner.
Time for cake! Do not ask me why the cake man put hearts on a 30 year old man's cake. I also thought that "red" looked a little pink to me! I chose to pick my battles on this day and let it slide with that cake man. I was also hoping for so much "fire" on that cake, that no one would notice those girly hearts.
Light em up!
Cody suggested that b/c we had already sang "Happy Birthday," we should instead teach everyone the words to "Boomer Sooner" and have them sing that instead. And so we did!!
Pat says, "Good job guys!!"
...and blow out those candles!
Now onto drinking and dancing. Mark Graves (Pat's friend) had made the whole party playlist for us on an MP3 player. He did a great job and Pat loved his picks. Mark made up "dinner music," "dancing music" and "last song of the night music." Thanks MARK!!!! What a great gift for Pat.
All of our SA friends at the party!
...Randy and Cody having a ball...
...Pat and I...
Thanks to Chris/Kelly (above) and Travis/Dao (below) for helping so much with the invite list. They got me everyone's email addresses and clued me in on Pat's friends to invite in order to not leave anyone out.
It's a sign of a good party when no one wants to leave it! They even started a dance circle!
Cody taking his turn in the circle! Go Cody Go!
Happy BIG 30 Pat!!!!
Special thanks to Chris and Kelly for helping with the invite list, helping set up for the party and taking pictures....and to Rochelle for taking additional pictures....and to Travis for the invite list and taking Pat golfing with a bottle of Jack on the day of....and to Vlad for making sure everyone was on target and for giving me updates as to what hole they were on when and when to except them... and to Mark Graves for the excellent music playlists....and to Pat's parents, Randy and Cody for helping with everything else and making 5 trips up to the golf club to figure everything out!!!
Here's To You Pat and the fact that I'll always be 9months younger then you! hehehe
To kick off our Halloween weekend we carved pumpkins! The girls helped....kind of....
I carved a cat and Pat carved the Bat Symbol.
Isabel had made some Halloween arts and crafts at school as well!!
On Friday our estate was planning on have a little Halloween party with prizes for best dressed girl and boy, so we had some friends over for a pizza dinner to go to that. It ended up getting rained out, but we still had fun.
Isabel's friend, Miranda (she's 4), with Isabel and Lillie below.
On Saturday we headed out to Kyalami Estates (The neighborhood next to us) for a magic show and trick or treating.
The girls were little Chinese Women for Halloween. Check out their hair. **Thanks Megan for having your birthday dinner at PF Changs in Tulsa. (This is where I got their chop sticks from).**
As I said, the girls were little Chinese women.... and Pat was a ninja to match them!
This mom thought they were cute I guess. She made her 2 kids go stand in the picture with them. It was funny.
Below: The adult in the witch's hat is Rhisti, our landlord. Her husband wasn't there, but her two kids were (the girl in the witch's hat and the boy with the sword).
Here was our little group of B&V kids ready to go trick or treating!!
Isabel loves to stick with Miranda.
Pat was happy to see some other B&V adults dressed up too!! Check out the hippies, Shawn and Rochelle Casey!
Isabel's pink bear and Lillie's Holly dog were up waiting for us when we got back from trick or treating!
