Jon's Surprise Birthday

To celebrate Jon’s birthday, I took inspiration from a recent chili cook-off that we had at work. But instead of chili (because there are only so many beans you can swallow whole) I decided on a Bake-off!!! Not just any bake-off – a surprise bake-off!!!
So I invited friends and family over for an 8pm party Friday night. All I told Jon was “be ready by 5, wear something nice.” I planned out this whole serial date – where he’d get clues for where to go next sequentially thru the night. So it was like a story unfolding! It was really fun. The week before, I had asked him if there was one restaurant that he could go to for his birthday, what would it be? He said (I should have seen this coming) Cheesecake factory. So I said “ok, that’s what we’ll do!” so I had him convinced that we were going to the cheesecake factory (I made it up that there was one in Rochester – which I guess there is!). So for the first stop, we went to happy hour at the blue tusk and started off with a drink. Next up, I wrote him walking directions to the restaurant where I had 6pm dinner reservations – kitty Hoynes. It was funny, I actually wrote the directions totally backwards! Oh well – we got there anyway. What was really cool is that the owner of kitty Hoynes is from our favorite town in Ireland: Kilkenney! He came over to our table & we started talking. It was really neat! I tried to warn Jon not to eat that much, but he ordered the hardiest meal on the menu – shepherd’s pie (and ate it all in true Jon style).
At any rate, next up was blockbuster (the clue was “BB near PB in Cicero – you pick one night only!”) so he got to pick the movie that he really wanted to watch (something with James Bond). Then we went to wegmans to get some phish food (our favorite flavor of Ben & jerry’s). The next clue led him back to the house (where there were people waiting). We got there & I was surprised how much of a surprise they kept. There were no cars in site, nothing like that. So we went in and it was all dark – people were hiding down in the den so we couldn’t see them when we first walked in. it was awesome! Jon was so surprised!!!
Then came the bake-off part... I explained it to him & you could see his eyes get so so big. He piled 2 plates worth of baked goods and sat down to eat. The funny part was - everyone was watching him! There were actual 1st and 2nd prizes, so everyone was waiting for the declaration. At first, he tried to eat everything, but then resorted to bites of each thing. Congrats to the winners: Craig won with his Robert Redford cake & April & matt won 2nd with their chocolate cake. Yummy! It was a lot of fun – my parents & Chris & Kelly came, and a bunch of our friends & neighbors.
Needless to say, Jon was so happy (and a little sick from all the sweets); overall, it probably cut a few years off his life, but it was worth it!