Surprise Party for Karen

My sweet friend Karen definitely ranks as one of my favorite people. This year for her birthday, Valerie, another friend, and I decided to throw Karen a surprise birthday party. I've never thrown a successful surprise anything (I get caught) but Karen played along beautifully for this one. I am convinced she knew nothing.

Valerie helping me decorate

Valerie and I wanted to do something different, something none of us had ever done before, so I suggested we visit the new Cameron Park Observatory, then go to my house, pre-decorated of course, for the obligatory cake & ice-cream. She suggested we meet at her house first, as if it were one of our usual game nights, to throw her off the scent of our deviousness. Jared, another game night regular, met us there to further blind Karen to the truth. After a while, I put an end to the gaming, and informed everyone to (please) go get in my car. Karen didn't ask one single question! Not one! She just climbed right in, happily participating in the conversation about thumb wars! ("Luke...I am your mother!") So, I drive us out of town, expecting some kind of question from Karen, like, hmm, I don't know: "where are we going," or something like that, but no. She just sat there. Even when I turned off the highway and started winding us through the dark countryside roads, she asked not one question. She didn't even ask WHY when I charged my passengers to avoid any light sources upon pain of death! (To get their eyes as adjusted to the dark as possible for better night vision, good for star-gazing.) She just obediently sat with her eyes closed until we got to the observatory and I told her to open them. Later, when I asked how on earth she could possibly go along with everything and not ask one single question, her reply was: "Why would I? I LOVE surprises!!"

The new observatory was interesting... a little small and plain, like everything else is in podunk Placerville, but interesting. They had a couple telescopes set up outside, and one huge one inside. The planet Jupiter was the subject of the night, and we also saw 4 of it's 63 moons. (Did you know there was that many??) We had a good time.

Claiming I needed a bathroom break, with Valerie and Jared readily agreeing, I drove us to my parents house, where Valerie and I had spent some of the afternoon decorating. We came inside, Karen looked around, and then she asked her first question: "Whose birthday is it?" It's yours, you silly goose! Surprise!" Golly. And then we attacked the cake.

Karen, Valerie and Jared

Karen turning ____ years old...even though her birthday is really on the 5th.

(There is an unspoken agreement in our group. We don't ask, and we don't tell. Its a birthday. Thats all you need to know.)

After we took the decorations down, we decorated Karen for a photo op. ( I got Michael out of bed to take it for us. He's such a good sport.)