A few little bumps before a fabulous weekend

It’s been an interesting week. I have been secretly planning a surprise birthday party for Bill to be held after the Saluki Specialty on Friday up in Seattle. The plan was that he would take the train to Seattle to visit his granddaughter all week and then I would pick him up Friday morning on my way to the specialty. This would give me the entire week for all of the food preparation to be done so this would really be a surprise.

Sometimes, things just don’t work out the way we plan.….on Monday his client found a house that he loved and wanted to make an offer on so the Tuesday departure date was gone, but Bill hoped he could leave on Wednesday morning. Since I had no choice in the matter I just pushed my time table back a bit so that I would do all of the prep on Wednesday & Thursday. I figured it could still be done.

Tuesday morning arrived and there was the back and forth stuff and it looked like this was going to go through so the trip to visit his granddaughter had to be canceled due to all of the paper work and trying to rush through a home inspection. It now became iffy whether Bill would even be able to leave town.

The challenge was how to start working on the party without tipping Bill off. Since everyone was already invited I decided if worse came to worse I could just bring up a picture….not always necessary to have the birthday boy around as long as there is food and drink.

On Wednesday I snuck home several bottles of wine and hid them downstairs, but wasn’t able to do that with the food, so when I got home from the store I boldly walked into the house with a big bag of groceries saying that the specialty was a great time to practice new potluck items. I was totally shocked but he didn’t ask any questions, I figured he was wrapped up in the house business.

Thursday was much harder. I had ordered a couple of pies to take from the Bipartisan Café and when I came home with more groceries he wanted to help me bring them in. He opened my car door and saw two pies. The cat was starting to come out of the bag…..his mouth opened and closed several times before he got out the question I was dreading…WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I burst out in song with the only line I could remember…..WE’RE HAVIN A PARTY!

I almost pulled it off, but not quite….being the good sport he is, we spent the next several hours making dips and roll up sandwiches for his surprise birthday party. I will say by time we finished I think the sandwich technique was much better.

Friday morning arrived and we headed off to Voo Doo Doughnuts as a friend asked us to bring up two dozen for the hospitality table, then we headed off to Lava Java for coffee and off we were to Marymoor Park for day one of the Puget Sound Saluki Club specialty.

I think I worried about Lacey all of the way up. Was it the right thing to do to take her on the trip or should we have stayed home. The weather was supposed to be cool which was a plus. We had several conversations about enjoying life for what it is, and she loves to go and I love to have her with me, and she enjoyed giving little Saluki kisses to some of her old friends.

The day was wonderfully cool, we setup our tent and pen ringside and the girls watched the world go by. Specialties are always a lot of fun visiting with friends that we only see occasionally. Our day ended up nicely with Katie & Bill going Best of Opposite Sex and then we proceeded to party. Everyone was invited to come and help Bill celebrate an early milestone birthday. It was a relaxing way to enjoy friends and celebrate his birthday.

Saturday looked to be a sunnier day than Friday so I started worrying a little about Lacey and the heat, but there was a nice cool breeze. Since we had such a late judging time, we stopped at the Brown Bag for breakfast, and while the food was good, the portions were ridiculous. It would be interesting to know how much food they actually throw away as I didn’t see plate go by that couldn’t have fed two or three people. Then it was off to our latest coffee shop find: Kahili Coffee in downtown Kirkland. Great atmosphere and LOVED their coffee. Then off to the show.

Since everything was already set up, all we had to do was walk the girls in and raise up the tent, and we were set for another day of watching and showing. Saturday turned out to be Kayla’s day. I couldn’t have asked for her to do anything better and the judge must have thought the same as she awarded Kayla Best of Breed.

All that was left was tearing down the set up, repacking the suburban and heading home. All three girls were tired and slept all the way home. It might have been a bumpy start to the weekend but it turned out perfect.