Julie's Birthday Week

As most of you know, Julie turned 50 while we were at Walt Disney World. I knew I needed to make it as special as her 40th (I took her on a surprise trip to Montreal then she had a surprise party). I planned for months to create a weeks worth of surprises. I created 10 envelopes. Inside was a note card with a message on one side and a quote about aging on the other. They were each associated with a gift.

Here is the list of what she received throughout the week:

1) A personalized ipod playlist with 15 songs from past and present, ranging from the #1 song the day she was born to Forever Young by Rod Stewart.

2) A trip to the Nike Factory Store where she could get a few things for herself. (G & G watched the kids for us). She also got a bag of red licorice.

3) A birthday shirt to be worn to the park on her birthday.

4) A Shutterfly book of her first 50 years. I wrote to both her parents and her brother for input in the book. I asked them questions about her childhood and put some of their responses in the book. This project took me the longest because I had to sneak into her parent's house, scour for photos, scan them all in and create the book all without her knowing. She got awfully annoyed at me spending so much time on the computer :) Below are just a three of the over 100 photos I used in the 30+ page book.

5) I only used portions of the responses from her parents and brother in her book, so I typed up the full responses so she could read everything they wrote.

6) I created a Magic Kingdom Scavenger Hunt where Julie had to find or do at least 5 things on the list. I know her pretty well so I didn't pick anything too crazy. She did officially do/see 9 of them without help. Here is the list:

Julie’s Birthday Adventure - Magic Kingdom 2012 

______ Get a photo with Mickey

______ Find the Roy Disney statue

______ Take a family photo in front of Cinderella’s Castle

______ Try a Dole Whip

______ Find a bottle of water for under $3.00

______ Get more than 10,000 points on the Buzz Lightyear Ride

______ Count the number of Dumbo “cars”

______ Point out someone else wearing a birthday button

______ Make a wish in the Castle wishing well

______ Point out someone wearing a first visit button

______ Try to remove the sword in the stone

______ Find a cast member from Minnesota

______ Find the window on Main Street that has Walt Disney’s name

______ Find 5 hidden Mickeys

______ Buy yourself a Disney World souvenir

7) For my big compilation gift I utilized the service of lifeonrecord.com to create a video of phone messages of friends and family important to Julie. There were 46 messages that totaled almost an hour's worth of birthday greetings and fun memories. I split them into two parts, so #6 was part 1.

8) At breakfast on her birthday I had her watch other videos I had put together. I captured the kids and my nephew singing happy birthday and also went to the kids' school to record their two classes also singing to Julie. I labeled this one as wishes from those "truly young at heart".

9) This one was part II of the phone messages.

Bonus: I brought 5 (for 5 decades) floating candles in gold (as in 50th anniversary) and lit them on her birthday night once the kids were in bed. My parents and I toasted her on this special day and we had a nice recap of the week out by the pool.

 

10) Her final surprise was on our way home. It was a bag of Swedish Fish and a promise of dinner just the two of us. We accomplished this on Monday after we got home. We went to the Timberlodge Steakhouse, our favorite place. 

I know she enjoyed having her birthday week in Florida spending it with her family and my parents. She was true to form in her low key attitude but I knew she was impressed when she said she'd have to hire a party planner for my next big birthday. It surely was a birthday to remember from my perspective. I'm sure from her's too.