29 going on 9--Let the Adventures Begin!

June 22nd was Adam's 29th birthday. With the help of my good friend Carrie, I decided to throw him a surprise party at the last minute. It was all under the guise of a group FHE lesson at Carrie and Miguel's house. Carrie, who has just started a professional event-planning business, was excited to choose a theme for the party and run with it. At first I just told her that Adam was a fan of the 80s, but she had me narrow it down and we decided to go with one of Adam's favorite movie trilogies from that decade: Indiana Jones!

The first idea that I had was to make the invitations to email to all of our friends and what better way than by morphing Adam's face onto Harrison Ford's body? I later had it blown up into a framed poster to be displayed at the party... I think it came out very cool!

We only had a week to plan, but of course if you know me, you know that I left most of it until the day of...luckily I had Carrie to help me. She got Adam the hat and whip and I found him a white shirt and fortunately he was already wearing his khaki cargo pants. Even the family dog, Reno, played dress-up with his very own Indie costume--it was hilarious!

Our friend David actually works for George Lucas and so he brought Adam a birthday gift that you can only get at Skywalker Ranch. It was an Indiana Jone t-shirt(above) and some IJ playing cards.

Tiki torches lined the backyard and we played the Indiana Jones theme music as well as some of Adam's favorite music from the 80s.

Carrie posted a menu and gave all the food names to fit the theme: Mud slide fountain, Peruvian veggie flatbread, archaeological dirt cups, and chilled monkey brains(strawberry smoothies in monkey goblets)!

We had the Elders join us and give us a brief Family Home Evening message that even coincided with the theme---overcoming obstacles and keeping your eyes on the prize.

Bill was gracious enough to let us use his house to host the party. All of the relics he has collected over his 88 years, really added to the party!

Carrie handmade an antique treasure map to hang on the wall and decorated the room with bats hanging from the ceiling, skulls, snakes, all sorts of treasures with dry ice for a cool effect.

Then the party really got started when everyone headed out to the backyard.

We all anxiously waited while Ryan set up the "mentos rocket" a device the drops mint flavored mentos into a bottle of soda and creates a geyser.

It was slightly anticlimactic, so the guys moved on to dry-ice bombs. However, they underestimated the strength of the plastic and it took them a good 3 or 4 attempts before we got a really loud explosion, but well worth the wait.

Adam was having the time of his life acting like a kid again. What is a birthday party without blowing things up?

Some people had already left when we decided we should take a group photo.

It was so much fun celebrating with all of our friends!

By the way--the blond is Carrie-- you can see her other great work at http://www.bealamaroevents.com/

Happy Birthday Adam!

To save a few bucks. . .

Solid wood dressers are not cheap, but we found one made of maple on Craig's List for $60 and couldn't pass it up. It was pretty shabby looking and had a big iron mark on the top, so I persuaded Adam to refinish for it me.
He sanded it all down and put on a spray primer. I picked out this guacamole color to go in the baby's room. After a couple of coats of paint had dried I wanted him to give it a distressed look by sanding all the edges down. At first, I didn't like the gray primer that was coming through as he sanded, but when he had finished...

I decided I really loved how the gray went with the brushed nickle handles I had picked out. He did a great job and was very patient with all my requests(i.e. demands).

Takes Me Back

I remember getting off the bus and watching Saved by the Bell everyday after school. I love an actor who doesn't take himself too seriously. I think people like Rob Lowe and Mark Paul Gossler need to teach a class on how not to age after 20 years. He still looks like Zack Morris! If you've got 9 minutes maybe it will take you back too...

Vernal to San Francisco

I went home for a few days and then my parents decided to make the trek out here to San Fran to bring me home and see where we live. It was quite an experience for them. Forget rollercoasters, you should have heard my mom screaming on our way down Lombard street! My dad finally let Adam do all the driving, because I was horrible at giving directions. Unfortunately for my mom, rainbow flags will never mean the same again...

I didn't take a single photo, so I have no evidence of our adventures except for one piece of video footage. We took them to an Oakland A's baseball game. My family are huge baseball fans and it was fun to be there with them. Tori raided the gift store right off the bat and was decked out head to toe in Oakland A's gear. For some odd reason, American Idol, Jordin Sparks gave a free concert after the game. We weren't that impressed and left after a couple of songs.

It was good to have them here so that they could see where we live and work. Now when I talk to them about what's going on here they won't have to use their imaginations--even though the truth probably wasn't far from their wildest imaginations of what San Fran must be like!

Latest Shoot

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