Sweet Success

As you could see from yesterday's post, it was my Aussie's birthday.  It was a big one, he turned a quarter of a century!  And I think birthdays are a big deal too so I had to plan a surprise party for him.  We've had a lot of expenses lately with all the new home purchases, plus a big group of us are going to the races on Saturday (more on that later) which will no doubt be a pricey outing, so the plan was to just have a quiet dinner out between the two of us.

Little did he know that I had invited about 15 of our close friends to come over around 6:30 PM last night to help with the surprise celebration.  Now, I've been planning this for two weeks and I'm terrible at keeping surprises a secret.  I will usually get down to the last couple of days and then I'll burst like a dam.  Not this time.  Everyone kept it quiet and so did I.  There were a few close calls, like when my Aussie told me he was going to make a dentist appointment at 4:00 PM so he could get out of work early.  No bueno.  He never gets home before 7:00 or even 7:30 PM so an early arrival would have ruined everything.  So I had to give him the the excuse that his big birthday present was being delivered around 7:00 PM and I didn't want him to see it arrive.  He bought it, thank goodness.  So he stayed on at work a bit longer and then texted when he was about 15 minutes away.  Everyone hid in the kitchen and then jumped out when I told him to get his birthday present in the bedroom.

It was awesome to have pulled it off.  And I think everyone had a good time.  We had lots of good wine and champagne flowing.  I made a nice little buffet of food which was completely devoured.  Roasted sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, squash and asparagus; 7 lbs. of prawns with homemade cocktail sauce (they put mayonnaise in their cocktail sauce here- gross!); veggie spring rolls; vegetable crudites and Turkish breads with hummus and tzatziki and my famous 4-layer bean dip with chips.  The piece de resistance was the mini gourmet cupcakes from Ghermez Bakery in the city.  So good!!

My friend S. took all the pictures so I'll have to get them from her and post them here soon.  All I can say now is TGIF!  I'm exhausted and ready for my weekend to begin.  I'm sure I'll have all kinds of interesting feedback on my first experience at the races for Monday's post.  See you then!!