I know as most of you are looking at the title you are saying much like Jleigh Holloway, "So where did you get the idea for this party?" And like I told her, "Well this is actually the 2nd time I have done this." And on that note, a little history lesson:
The year after I graduated from Appalachian and was still living in Boone working with Campus Crusade, I had a party pretty much similar to this one. One day I was sitting around with my roommate Andrew Stover, his then-girlfriend Sheila, and a friend who was rooming with us for a few weeks named Parke Ladd. Sheila asked me, "What should we do for your birthday?" And much like Jay Pop looked at me when I told him the idea a few weeks ago, she said "That's so stupid. You already know it's a surprise." But once I got those three on board I had the best party ever.
Which brings us to the present. So two weeks ago I was watching Michael Phelps swim for 8 golds which made me think, "Hey what was I doing last time Michael Phelps was going for 8 golds in the Olympics? Oh yeah, throwing myself a surprise party." So I quickly got Jay and Torrey Popovich on board and the plans were in the works.
For those of you who don't know the basic concept behind a reverse surprise party, which I'm sure most of you don't since it's worked so well twice now, the idea is that you get someone in on being the "official" planner/inviter. This person or people then convince everyone that they are setting up the birthday boy for a great surprise, while the birthday boy is actually calling all the shots. The first time I did this, the surprise was pretty lame because it was just me jumping out behind everyone yelling, "Surprise!" One thing I always thought was that if I could do that party over I would make a video to set up the surprise. And what do you know, I could do the party all over. And here it is....
At the end, the house seen is the Popovich residence, just a little hint to the guests of where I would appear. And the final clip is me standing in their upstairs loft exactly as I stood when the video hit its conclusion. Sorry for those of you who weren't able to experience the surprise in person, but maybe if I have inspired at least once of you to pull your own surprise party someday, it was all worth it!
