Lauren's Birthday Part 2

Brandon and I started our day with a trip to the party outlet store. There we roamed the aisles for about 45 minutes picking out balloons, bubbles, streamers, wrapping paper, and other festive party favors for Lauren's party. While unsuspecting Lauren went to her parents house for the afternoon, Brandon and I borrowed the spare key in order the decorate her whole house!

Around 3 pm, we learned she wasn't going to be coming back to her house before picking me up at the train. Obviously I was not on the train so Brandon dropped me off at the station just moments before Lauren came to pick me up (she nearly saw me run from the other end of the parking lot). As it was, I could tell she was curious why I would wait outside in single digit degree weather, but I sluffed it off.

The plan: Brandon and I would each yell "Happy Birthday" when she walking into the house and blow bubbles at her.

Well, the plan half worked. Brandon didn't make it back to her house before we did, so I alone yelled "Surprise!" as she opened the door and started saying, "Oh my God!" over and over and over. It was the exact reaction we hoped for and when Brandon showed up TEN minutes later we started the process of dispelling all the lies we were forced to tell that entire day.

Fast forward to dinner at FlatTop. Kathleen, Kate, Brandon, Richard, Aaron, Kim, and I made up the party. We went up only twice and stuffed ourselves on stir fry. Yumm-o as Lauren would say!

After the three hour long dinner, during which time we sang happy birthday thrice, we headed back to Lauren's house for part two of the festivities (the pajama party). Kathleen beat us there and when we pulled up to Washington Street we were dumbstruck to see she was being questioned by a police officer who's car lights flashed intensely. Turns out, Kathleen was mistaken for a burglar! Well, once all was settled we had a good laugh over that. She was quite a sport about the whole thing!

After settling into PJs, Brandon and Kim placed 25 candles into the beautiful "Sonia Cake" and we sang happy birthday for the final time that evening. We toasted our birthday girl with wine, cocktails, and colorful twirly staws -- what a birthday!

Quotes from the evening:

Kathleen: "They thought I was spying on the houses for my next burglary!"
Me: (to Kim) "What does Brown do for you?"
Kate: "In college I had a boy who would drop his pants on command!"
Brandon: "They were talking about 'shelf bras!'"
Aaron: "I still can't ask with a straight face, "Do you masturbate compulsively?" (this he has to ask when taking interviews with potential drug rehab patients)