For the most part the party remained a surprise for Chris, however read on below and I will give a play by play of what happened. 

 The party was a big success and Chris expressed to me and David many times over he was happy about it.  I think he really needed this in his life right now. It has been a very rough road for him over the last several months.  

We managed to keep everything a surprise right up until he was to come to the office and open the door to his party. We had most of the people in the room waiting but because it was still early, there were several more people on the way. All of a sudden David yells out, and by the way, David rarely yells anything, but he says, "Chris is here NOW" we all kind of looked at each other in shock because for one, he had no reason to be there at that time and we knew people were still coming.

I kept peeking out the window because one of the people coming here was his friend Jason and he happened to see Chris and pull up behind him to pretend he just saw him and wanted to talk. While they were standing outside talking, my cousin Scott came walking down the street and realized Chris was there outside, but by this point he didn't know what to you so he kept walking towards the office pretending he didn't see Chris. 

Then our trumpet player came walking to the door with his instrument in hand,  then Angela came walking in the door and by then Chris is looking over at the office with this strange look on his face.  Jason couldn't stand there making up stories any longer and just told Chris to get into the building where we were all laughing hysterically!

Chris who is NEVER early or on time, showed up early for his own surprise party!! 

We had such a great evening, most all his friends "old and new" showed up and we noticed instead of getting out to the bars, Chris seemed rather content to stay with the party. David got a couple huggs and I did too, this is where we knew he was very happy.  His world has been so full of anxiety and insecurity we wanted to put a little back into his world and let him know we are never going anywhere and that our family will go on as usual, regardless of what has been lost over the past year.  

I now pray he gets the job with the transport company for his sake but for my sake I am a little selfish. I don't want him to move to Greenbay. He will be so far from the rest of the family,  but I know this is best for him and I will support this 100% if this works out for him.  I just want him to be happy.  I want all my kids to be happy!

Since I don't want to start another whole blog today (time reasons) I will mention here that my mother's day was one of the best I have ever had.  All my kids did this on their own with no parental  prodding.

They took me out to shop for two hanging plant baskets and then out to lunch.  THIS WAS A WONDERFUL event for me, not that they spent money because my plants cost a grand total of $30.00 but because they thought of this on their own and came here to take me out. That is what was so special for me.

Last, but never least,  I want to thank my husband for working so hard to make things possible for us to do this and to my beautiful sister for helping with buying things, making things and helping to make this event special for the entire family.

This family does not have much money and certainly not a lot of material things, but we have each other and no money in the world could buy that or the respect and affection we have to one another.  We are truly blessed............