What A Weekend!

I couldn't say much about our weekend when I was anticipating it, because we had TWO surprise parties to attend! Both parties were for readers of this blog, so mum was the word.

But now I can say what a fun time we had keeping the secret from our friend Steve. Little did he know, but his wife had invited 6 or 7 couples over for a surprise 40th birthday party for Steve, who works with Papa Rooster. Usually they drive together and Steve's wife picks him up from our house, but on Friday PR was going to say that he'd bring Steve to his house because our son B10 had been playing there and needed to be picked up. Then--Happy Memorial Day!--their boss decided to let everyone off work at 3:00! PR and a co-worker pretended they still had so much work to do that they were going to go to a nearby restaurant to finish reports before they started their weekend, and of course Steve had to come along for the ride. He didn't suspect anything, although he did think it was a little out of character for PR to hang around work instead of heading home for a run or to work on a sermon!

On Saturday, the middle four kids and I drove out to St. Charles, IL, to see a matinee production of Disney's High School Musical that many friends from our old youth theater group were in. It was such fun to see the show and everyone!

Then the kids hung out with friends at their house in West Chicago, while I went out to dinner with the mom, one of my best friends. It was great to catch up with her. There are so many people from "my old life" that I would love an hour or two with! Well, it was a start.

Saturday night, we had another surprise party--a 20th anniversary party for good friends from our Wheaton days. Papa Rooster and Mr. M were SG Prez and VP back in the day, and also were in each other's weddings. The big surprise to this party was the special guest and entertainment for the evening--singer/songwriter David Wilcox! If you don't know his music, you need to check out his simple acoustic melodies and fabulous lyrics, rich in metaphor and spiritual imagery.

Sunday morning brought another surprise--visitors from our "mother church," Church of the Resurrection. A special couple and their infant daughter joined us for church and for lunch afterward. So it was sooner than I expected before I got to spend some more time catching up with old friends!

The only "cold shower" on our weekend was having a new water heater installed on Friday--yay!!--which turned out to be defective, apparently--boooooo. So we've basically had no hot water since Friday morning, and of course, it's Memorial Day weekend--so what is the likelihood we'll get someone out here on M-Day? We are so grateful for Our Hero, Mr. A, who installed it and ran a new exhaust line out of the basement for us; wish it were an easy matter to return the defective one!