{Liz's Birthday Bash: Part 1}

So Pierce's mom just turned 50 this past week and we wanted to celebrate in a big way....for about a month or so, Pierce's siblings and dad had coordinated that all the kids and grandkids to fly out on Friday to surprise her. It was really hard for me to live this double life and a few times I almost spilled the beans...luckily I didn't!! Anyway, her actual birthday was Thursday- so Wednesday night, we went to the airport and picked up a lovable puppy for her gift from Jeff. It was partly a distraction so she wouldn't suspect anything in the next 2 days and also because she loves Newfoundland dogs.

Thursday, Liz's good friends threw a surprise birthday lunch for her at Tuscany that I got to go to-- so delicious and fun to see her surprised! They gave her a hard time with all the "Over the Hill" and "Old Age" stuff but I hope I look like that at age 50!

 Thursday night, we had to watch the new puppy Louie so Jeff could take Liz on a special birthday dinner. She kept wanting Pierce and I to come but we had to make up about 100 different stories about why we should just go out on Friday etc.... luckily (luckily? or unluckily?) Pierce is a great liar and got her convinced we should just go grab some dinner and a movie Friday so she agreed.  Chelsea and Travis flew in with their kids that night and stayed at a hotel so we got to quickly say hi to them that night!

Friday morning, we got up and Chelsea came over and we went and ran errands for the party that night. Everyone else was flying in and Pierce had to be at work to keep up the story and in case Liz stopped by to see him and Jeff. She was really tired from the um-- puppy/monster and tried to get out of doing anything with us, but Pierce knew how to convince her to come and meet for at least dinner (wink wink). 

We got the party set up once everyone arrived and then Jeff got to the restaurant early so we could have the hostess lady tell Liz and Jeff we would be eating in the private room...she pulled back the doors and we were all standing there and yelled Surprise!! Needless to say, she was surprised and she is a hard person to dupe! We enjoyed dinner at Joy Luck and then went back to the house for cake and ice cream. The cake was divine!

Saturday Morning: we all met up at Johanna's Kitchen for breakfast and then headed up to Hogle Zoo!

Here are some favorite pictures from there, Pierce took a majority of them!