My 2nd Ever Reverse Surprise Party

This past Thursday, August 21st, was my 27th birthday. It was about as boring and uneventful as most of them. Not near as uneventful as my 19th when Jason Palmer convinced everyone that I was lying about it being my birthday, but it was pretty stinking close. But part of the reason why it was so eventful, even though Thursday nights are when my small group from church meets, is because everyone in my small group was eagerly setting me up for a surprise I would never get!

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!