Sterling’s Sort of Surprise 30th!

Two weekends ago we set out to throw Sterling a surprise 30th birthday party and we well… sort of succeeded :). We ended up having to tell him that we were throwing him a birthday party which is a long story BUT we didn’t have to tell him any of the details! The nice part was that once he knew there was a party I no longer had to sneak around hiding things. For instance, I originally planned on telling him that I was going to Richmond for a newborn session but really I was going to go to my parents, buy the food with them on Friday afternoon and cook it all there Friday night. Once he found out though I was able to get all the food when it was convenient and cook it at my own pace at home. HUGE load off!

We had a lot of moving parts to Sterling’s 30th birthday party and each went off without a hitch! All thanks to our amazing friends who came and helped out every step of the way! HUGE shout out to our friend Bobby who helped me co-plan everything, Chris, Andy, Lauren, and Nat who helped me distract Sterling, run errands, make food, set up decorations and more! Can’t forget to thank Beth and Jessie who drove through DC traffic only to get in town and run to the grocery store for me – yall are saints!

Saturday started with the boys taking Sterling off for a quick breakfast and then skeet shooting only to be followed by a raw oyster fest downtown with live music! There is very little that Sterling likes more than live music during the day surrounded by people and food! While they were out we scurried around getting the final preparations ready, putting out the food and decorating the house. We even made a stop at Party City and the girls treated Sterling to big “30” balloons which were a hit!

Sterling and the boys arrived to a surprise of friends gathered around! We had the most beautiful weather for March – 75 degrees and sunny! We were able to casually hang out outside, eat food, and catch up with old friends! We sang Happy Birthday around a plate of chocolate bourbon pecan pie cupcakes and then hustled over to Stoneleigh Lanes for some duckpin bowling. We capped off our evening by heading back to our house to watch the UVA game which ended on with an epic win (thank goodness because if they had lost I don’t think it would have mattered anything else we had done – would have ruined the weekend).

One of the best parts of the night though was getting to show Sterling the videos of warm wishes from the people who couldn’t make it to the party. This was totally Bobby’s idea and was definitely one of Sterling’s favorite parts of the whole weekend! Some of our oldest friends from the farthest places videoed in to wish Sterling a Happy Birthday! The perfect cherry on top of a great weekend!

I can’t thank all of our friends who came and helped out or were there in spirit! It was so worth it to see Sterling so happy on his 30th birthday!