Happy 35th Ken!

Today is Ken's 35th birthday.

We are going to Marne's tonight for our dodgeball team's pumpkin carving night. It will be nice and relaxing -- perfect after a busy weekend. We threw him a surprise party on Saturday night. It took a month of planning and he had no idea. There were 40-50 people that gathered while Ken was watching a sports event downtown. When we got the call he was on his way home, everyone piled into the garage and yelled surprise when he opened the door to put his bike away.

He said he didn't have a clue. After the cheering, we turned on all the outside lighting. We had a blast. Everyone played a different role in the surprise -- some distracted him, others brought pumpkin pies, others helped set up and prep food. We had a keg, food and lots of games. One of our friends even made a spiced rum-filled pumpkin with a spigot (similar to this). She even put viking horns on it and gave it X's as eyes. It was awesome.

I prepared a sKENvenger hunt where 4 teams were randomly assigned and had to compete against each other to finish 10 sheets ranging from Ken trivia to collecting photos and videos. Photos are coming soon, but some of my favorites were:

• A video of a teammate “giving birth” and dedicating their performance to Natascha. (she gave birth to her first child earlier that day. We now have 4 videos of creative births - complete with "water breaking"... they are hilarious).
• A video of a teammate singing karaoke

☐ +30 points if it’s a solo
☐ +30 points if the teammate dedicates the song to “my lover, Ken”
☐ +30 points if the dedication is said by a man or lesbian teammate

(there is a karaoke bar around the corner from our house -- there are some very hilarious dedications and performances. Surprisingly, all 4 teams sang to Ken!)

• Of a “look how many people we can fit in here!” picture (imagine a whole team in our shower or in Ken's crotch)
  

In all, it was a great time. I still can't believe he had no idea. I'm so relieved it's over. Keeping secrets is hard! Which is why I didn't tell anyone over email (including Ken's parents) and tried to tell as few people as possible even when I saw them in person (Caroline and Rob, I was dying to tell you when you were in town).

Speaking of, happy birthday to Caroline as well! She and Ken share the same birthday today.