Braden's 30th birthday weekend

Finally I can blog about Braden's 30th birthday surprise weekend I had planned! The secrets were killing me (I'm a terrible secret keeper). I started planned a couple of months ago I think. I wanted to get several of Braden's friends to come for the weekend and also wanted Doug, Lynette, and Ada to join us. And as an extra special bonus, my cousin Sarah and her husband Derek had been trying to make it up here (from Dallas) for a visit for quite some time, so we coordinated it all together. There was a home football game, so the next big hurdle was finding enough tickets for most of us to go. That was quite a task, that took well over a month to finalize. Another issue was parking and tailgating for the game. We have one parking pass, but had way too many people for only 1 car. So eventually I ended up with 3 passes, so we got to choose (and ended up with a GREAT tailgate spot...thanks Amy!!). Then there was the food issue (where to put it all so Braden doesn't know what's going on...thanks again Amy!). And lastly, the issue of Braden coming home from practice at 10:15am to get ready to tailgate, meaning I have to get everyone here before then (and they all drove from Raleigh - 3-3.5 hours away!).

Anyway, it turned out to be a SUPER AWESOME weekend. Braden was completely surprised, and the weather turned out amazing. We got to tailgate for a couple of hours and then head to the game (Blythe got to go and Braden's friend Magnus's son went too). Despite it not being a very competitive game, they all had a blast. We grilled out on Saturday and hung at the house, then rested up for an eventful Sunday. Here's a few pics from Saturday.

Sunday was another beautiful day, so we called over to Claytor Lake to see if they had any pontoon boats to rent for a couple of hours. They did, so we reserved one, then packed up our picnic lunch and headed over to Claytor Lake to cruise the lake and get some rays. On the way over there, they called and said some other group wanted the boat we had reserved, so they'd give us the bigger one for the same price. This pontoon had a sink, table and chairs, and even a bathroom! We toured almost the whole lake, and despite Ethan crying most of the time because he didn't want to wear his life jacket, we all had a really nice time. Afterwards we hung out at the playground and beach area before our Raleigh and Dallas visitors had to say goodbye and drive home. Here are some pics from Clayor Lake:

Thanks to everyone who helped make it such a special weekend! Doug, Lynette, Ada, Sarah, Derek, Magnus, Christian, Greg, Grant (wish you could have stayed through the whole weekend!), Amy (for parking and food storage!), B'easy (for football tickets and parking pass), Jayme (for football tickets), Nick (for tickets), Braden's boss Ned (for freeing up Braden's schedule as much as possible...they had lots of recruits in!), and my mom and sister (for cooking and cleaning almost my whole house!). I'm sure I left out some, but it was definitely a group effort and was all well worth it!