Surprise!

My friend Elizabeth's birthday is on Saturday. We already celebrated with several other families in the Methow Valley with the Sunflower Relay, but her actual birthday is May 31st.  And it's a significant marker as it is her 40th.  We are going out of town this weekend so I've been thinking about a fun way to surprise her on a run sometime this week. I had the idea of getting 40 flowers and having them along the way while we ran.  But the thought of making her carry a bouquet of 40 flowers did not seem like the best gift. Then I simply thought of my old standby of balloons and sidewalk chalk somewhere along the way since those are festive and since those are a bit of a signature for the Huff family. 

I got out the bag of balloons last night fully intending to blow them all up after I put the kids to bed, but Anna and Taylor jumped in to help and to be a part of the fun.  

Jason had been fixing a popped tire on Taylor's bike so the bike pump was out in the living room. Taylor started blowing up balloons with the pump and adding them to the pile. He stopped at 10 and then went back to working on Legos upstairs. 

Then Anna used her mighty lungs and blew up 30 more to make a total of 40 balloons. 

I then tied ribbons around them and put them in 4 huge garbage bags ready to carry down to the bridge the next morning where Elizabeth and I usually meet to go running together. 

Poppy came to explore in the living room to see what the commotion was all about. 

She was quite curious. See below: 

She totally looks like a stuffed animal. :) 

So this morning, I ran about 3/4 mile down to the bridge with 4 giant bags of balloons in hand. Good thing it was 6:10 a.m. and I did not get that many folks staring at me.  One guy on his bike stopped and asked me if this was a new kind of exercise.  I laughed and just told him it was in celebration of a friend's birthday (but he must have been thinking this was a new cross fit workout or something.) :) 

When I got to the bridge, I started tying the ribbons to the railing as fast as I could hoping that I would not get caught.  40 balloons later, I got out the sidewalk chalk and started writing. If I had given myself more time, I thought I could have written "happy" 40 times- but I just wrote it twice and called it good adding some stars and squiggles around the text. 

I ran down the street and found Elizabeth running toward me. Usually, I say to her, "Where do you want to go?" and let her pick the route.  But this morning, I tried to steer her back to the bridge without being too suspicious.  I was so excited to see her expression as I knew she would not be suspecting anything since it is two days before her birthday.  

As we got closer, she just kept saying, "Oh my gosh..."  

This picture is blurry- but it was so funny. This lady said to Elizabeth, "Do you know who this is for? Who is Elizabeth?" And Elizabeth sheepishly said, "It's me!" 

(and at one point, Elizabeth said, "And you're not even a morning person! When did you get here?!" ) 

 selfie by the balloons on the bridge 

(Taylor commented when he saw this picture over breakfast 

 that I had some nice bags under my eyes. 

Thanks for noticing, buddy.) 

The reason I chose this bridge is that this seems to be OUR bridge. 

Like I said, it's where we meet most times when we go running together and it makes me so happy that we live so close that we can meet in the middle on this bridge over this beautiful park. 

(I wrote about a story that took place in this park to you back in March).  

I still am pinching myself that God has shown me such 

amazing grace in this dear friend over so many years.  

And it just seemed like a fun way to start the day 

with 40 balloons on the pedestrian bridge. 

As I was running back to the house, I was praying for you two that there might be some surprises along the way for you today in the hospital that make you laugh and that would be simple reminders to you that you two are loved. 

I'll ask Taylor to blow up another balloon with the bike pump in your honor after school. :)