The Van Gelder Family: Phil's 30th Birthday Surprise!!!

On this day, 30 years ago, this very handsome man was born!

(Yes, he would kill me if he knew I used this picture:)

He is the very best husband and partner I could ever ask for. Our girls are SO blessed to call him dad. He is the epitome of driven, ambitious, hard working, predictable, dependable, calculated, and most of all, generous. All these characteristics are why I love him so deeply.

They are also all the reasons I decided that for his 30th birthday he needed a WILD, spontaneous, carefree, once in a lifetime weekend to usher in his fourth decade of life!

PHIL'S VEGAS 30TH!!!!

Back in March I started saving my scarf money and planning to send him and several friends to Las Vegas for a guys weekend. Once I had all the guys on board, I worked it out with my mom for her to put the trip on her credit card so he wouldn't see the bill and ask about it. I have NEVER been able to surprise Phil, and I was DETERMINED to pull this off!

Time for the big reveal!

Being that Phil isn't one to enjoy being out of control, I didn't want the mood to be spoiled by springing it on him too short notice (like the morning of, for example). So the weekend before I sent him to the gym with the girls. While he was gone I set up the big surprise.

Welcome to "Let's Make a Deal ~ Phil's 30th Birthday Edition"

On three doors upstairs I placed these three envelopes. The rules of my game were; you can pick any envelope. If you like the prize you can keep it. If you want to try for another prize you can go for it, but if you move on, you can't go back.

Phil picked door number 1 ~ $50 cash. Being a good sport, he didn't settle with that, he moved on to...

He was so cute, trying to pretend to be excited, while holding Aven

Door 2 ~ New luggage! The day before was black Friday and we had been looking at new luggage (our old stuff was WAY broken and we needed a new set anyway). Thankfully, he had decided that he wasn't ready to buy any that day, little did he know I already had some. Once he saw the luggage he got so excited, he decided that was all he wanted and the game was over.

(This actually is a look of genuine excitement:)

I had to keep the game going, so I said, "Guess what, because this is your 30th birthday edition, you actually get to win all the prizes. Go ahead and open door #3.

He opened door 3 ~ A weekend free of Daddy Duty. That seemed pretty exciting too.

Once he had read all three, I pulled out a bonus 'GRAND PRIZE' card from my back and said, "well actually you are going to need to use all three of those prizes for the grand prize!"

THE GRAND PRIZE ~ A Weekend Trip to Vegas. When he opened the card there were 5 tickets I had made up in there with the names of each of the guys going.

Phil was so confused. He kept saying, "wait, I don't get it, what is this? when is this?"

Once I explained to him that he was going on a guys trip to Vegas the following weekend, I was pleasantly surprised at how excited he was.

All week he talked about the trip and how great it was going to be.

Friday morning, despite the snow and school delays, I drove the guys to the airport for their big adventure.

Brett, Phil, Brooks, Brad and Dave

All I know is when they got to Vegas, the limo picked them up and took them to the Venetian. Then on Sunday the limo picked them back up and took them to the airport where I picked them up Sunday night.