Well to celebrate him and his big birthday, I wanted to do something extra great. I was brainstorming ideas, and I thought what would Cody want to do more than anything?!? My first thought was play a round of golf with his Dad. Truly, he loves his family so much and loves to golf. So I had to make every effort to make it happen. I got in touch with Dad C, and he had to arrange a few things, but was totally on board. Yay!!! Cody's brother, Derek, has really taken a liking to golf the past few years, and so I extended the invite to him as well (and Casey too of course). The biggest struggle was to keep the whole thing a SURPRISE! Arranging flights without him knowing was tricky since we have a joint email account for flight confirmations and joint bank account where he would see the charge to our account. I basically forbid him from our email account for a month. Which was extra important since I contacted his closest friends and family to send personal messages about Cody to wish him well on his birthday. That seriously meant so much to him, and was such a treat for me to read through everyone's thoughts about Cody... childhood friends, siblings, parents, in-laws, mission president, college friends, Indiana friends, colleagues, etc. (Thank you to everyone who participated!!)
Well the big birthday weekend came. Dad C and Derek flew in on Friday. Cody usually works until 3:00pm on Fridays, but arrived home two hours early! I was a little nervous how I was going to keep it a secret since I was picking up the guys from the airport at 2:45. I just told him I had an errand to run, and took Landon along with me. He stayed home with the older kids. When we got back from the airport, I went inside first while the guys went to the front of the house to ring the doorbell. Well Cody was actually outside in the back playing with the kids. Dad C and Derek heard voices in the backyard and so came around to surprise him. Cody was shocked and couldn't believe they were there! We told him to run upstairs to change for a round of golf. He quickly changed while I got Jaden ready to join them. After a quick snack they were off. They just played 9 holes at the course behind our home, then came back for dinner.
The following day they arose early for Cody's favorite breakfast of biscuits, sausage, and gravy and headed out for an early Tee time. They golfed 18 holes at a nice course near Cody's work. They got some lunch and then did some clothes shopping. Ha, who would have thought 3 men would want to go shopping for clothes on their birthday... it was raining really hard that afternoon so that was their excuse;)
I'm so glad Derek came too! He is so great and such a fun uncle. Brielle adored him (and asks for "Deck" quite often;)
Meanwhile, the kiddos and I were busy running all over town picking up things for a birthday celebration that night.
I ordered this super cool golf cake, and ended up getting a waayyy better deal than I anticipated:) I asked the baker to make a golf ball in the middle and circle it with golf-themed cupcakes. Although it was super cute at one point in time and displayed "safely" on our kitchen table, the kids got so excited to show it to Cody when he walked through the door, they took it upon themselves to get it down. You can see why the cupcakes look the way they do once I got around to taking a picture of it :) Awww well, it's not like Cody cared either way:)
In the front room, I set up a little timeline of Cody's 30 years of life.
: from babyhood to now :
It would have been great to get it up on the wall, but the clock was a tickin' until the men got home from their day of golf and shopping:)
his favorite: "cheese cake for a crowd" (a Moon family recipe)
He asks for it every year, but I haven't made it in awhile in order to mix things up a bit.
After a Stromboli dinner (seriously... Cody is kinda obsessed with it) and cake, Cody got a chance to check out the balloons set up in the front room as well.
30 Balloons - each with a message attached from someone close to Cody
(these I gathered from all the emails everyone sent containing thoughts, memories, and birthday well wishes)
He loved reading through them! Such funny stories/memories, meaningful compliments, etc.
He loved it.
and these kids couldn't get enough of their Grandpa C
Sunday was Cody's actual birthday, so we finished off the weekend with some breakfast in bed.
Happy 30 years my love. So so sooo happy you were born, and our lives crossed paths 8 years ago. Here's to the next 100 birthdays! ;)
