Part 1 -- of the birthday surprise...

For weeks now I've been planning Russ's big 40th birthday surprise. I've been very successful in keeping the plans from him. Originally when we talked about his 40th birthday, he said he only wanted a party if his family could come. At that time, since we're all going to be together at Christmas with his family, they couldn't do a second trip also during November so close to the other trip. So I told him they wouldn't be able to come, and then he decided he just wanted new Ping G-10 golf clubs.
So that was going to be it. After thinking about the whole thing for a while, me, along with my sister, Lori, and friend, Nikki, decided it would still be fun to have a little surprise party for him on Saturday night anyways. So with lots of work, that was our plan. Also, some planning with his mom and sisters, we decided they would still fly in and surprise him. His mom, Barb, and sister, Karen, both flew in today from Minnesota. And his other sister, Lisa, flew in from Sacramento. They flew in around 3:00 in the afternoon, and since his surprise party wasn't until Saturday night, and they flew in today, we wanted them to surprise him a day early, and he would think that was his surprise. So our plan was when Russ got home from work, they would just come over to the house and knock on the door. So around 6:00, they knocked at the door and Russ answered it and was so surprised to see his family standing there. We grilled steaks and had an awesome night.... He wasn't expecting them at all to show up, so I was very excited we pulled this first part off without a hitch... Stay tuned for Part 2....