30th Wedding Anniversary

Stacy called me about 4 months before my parents anniversary with an idea about throwing my parents an anniversary party. I'd never think of something like that myself, but Stacy's just like that. I am always game for throwing a party so we decided to do it. We booked a room at the Provo library, sent out invitations, and got it catered. The trickier part was trying to contact all our parents close friends and family behind their back, but we were pretty successful at snooping through all their stuff to get addresses.

What did didn't anticipate was how hard it would be to get them to their own surprise party. A few weeks before Stacy told my parents that she had been asked to speak at a stake conference thing about families and would really like them to be there. (That wasn't a stretch because Stacy's in the stake YW presidency in her stake.) Usually something like that my parents just eat up and would love to be at, so we thought it was a perfect disguise to get them to their own party. But of course the Sunday before I was talking with my mom and she explained that Dad had gotten them a couple nights at a hotel in SLC and they weren't going to make it to Stacy's talk. My heart rate went through the roof. I tried to very nicely guilt my mom into how much Stacy really wanted them there... and then we had to do a lot of praying.

Luckily my dad, very hesitantly, agreed to come back down from SLC to listen to Stacy's talk. And then they got the shock of their life. When they entered the room they both looked like they just got caught stealing. It took several minutes for my mom to register what was going on. It was really fun seeing them in a room full of the people they love the most. The most incredible part is EVERY single person we got an RSVP from showed up! So the room was literally filled with loved ones.

Stacy emceed the night and it was perfect. All us kids got up and told stories about our parents and paid tribute to how incredible the last 30 years of their marriage had been. The night really couldn't have gone any better. It was so fun being able to show our parents how much we love them and appreciate how much they have done for us throughout our lives.

Samantha enjoying making announcements a little too much