Surprise!

Last week was my 35th birthday, and my dear, sweet husband and family threw me a surprise party. My husband was rightfully concerned that I would find out about the party, as I'm the girl who always knows how the movie twist will end less than half way through the movie. He did a great job not raising my suspicions, however, and I was very surprised!
On Saturday, we were going to go on a date night to celebrate my birthday with a steak dinner and a movie. We drove over to my in-laws to drop off the kids, and I was met with 40 or so of my closest friends and family.
Ryan decided to do a romantic, fancy party--with twinkle lights all over the yard, Italian food from Marios, candles on the tables, and Italian grapes decorating the cake, napkins and plates. It was wonderful! I loved every detail. He even had a caricature artist who drew pictures of the guests. We played a "How well do you know Chiara" game, which my sister in law won! There were pictures of me from birth to present hanging all over the house and flashing on the television. There I was in all my prom, cheerleading, adolescent glory! We got a few laughs from those pictures and memories.
My mom ordered a lemon cake from It's All About the Cake. It had the most beautiful, green grape vines, gold dusted leaves and purple grapes woven all across the fondant. I will be sure to post pictures when I get them. Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures on our camera, so I'm waiting to get some from family who were kind enough to document the event for me.
Really, what I liked the most was the fact that I had friends and family all together with me for the evening. Each season in my life has been important for its own reasons. However, I have to say that the current one has been one of my favorites. God has been very good to me, and that evening was a potent reminder of that fact!