I am officially a quarter of a century old. Woohoo! And what I had expected to be a low key day was actually a very sweet and wonderful day.

Jared had been acting strange all weekend. (Well, stranger than usual…) And when he’s like that, I KNOW something is up. Like the week before he proposed to me. All sorts of weird -for HIM- behaviors, like being late to things and only having lame excuses. Turns out he was masterminding a rather awesome proposal (as those of you familiar with that story know). But I was ready to strangle him up to that point where it all fell into place.

Anyways, Jared had been doing strange things all weekend. Like, buying a MONSTER chocolate cake from Costco. You know, the one that’s eight pounds of pure chocolate heaven? If you DON’T know, please make your way to the nearest Costco and locate one of these cakes. And bring a lot of friends to help you eat it to prevent cardiac arrest.

This is a quick picture I found online. It doesn’t do the cake’s enourmous size the justice it deserves, but you get the point.

So Jared bought one of THOSE cakes, and knowing that I am attempting to stay to my diet somewhat, refused to let me invite anybody over to help us consume it. Strange.

Then, the morning of my birthday, Jared got up early and told me that if I value my life, I’d stay out of the kitchen. MY kitchen. Fortunately, most mornings I am sleepy and enjoy extra time in bed, so I didn’t fight it, even when I heard strange noises emitting from downstairs. I started to smell something sweet- something that reminded me of cake or brownies- but shoved that thought out of my mind because we already had an EIGHT POUND chocolate cake of doom in our posession, and it would be ridiculous to have more sweet items in a household trying to fight off sugar.

After going to church and coming home, Jared banished me back upstairs, as if he had lots of important things to do. Which apparently included cleaning up the downstairs, like vacuuming, mowing the lawn, and doing dishes that I wasn’t allowed to see because it might give away the early morning cooking. So I changed into my pajamas, cuddled with the dogs, and was a lazy bum.

We then ate a delicious dinner (which he only let me prepare half of), and we opened a few presents and cards (shout out to Jared, Aunt Linda, Sarah, and my in-laws for great cards and/or presents!).  Jared mentioned how he cleaned up the downstairs as part of my presents. Which, to anybody who does most of the work around the house, is always a sweet thought and appreciated. But there was something WEIRD about the whole thing.

It only got stranger when he hinted that maybe I should change back into something nicer than my pajama bottoms because he might want to take a few pictures of me opening up my last gifts and having some cake and ice cream.  Since when does Jared like to take pictures of that sort of thing? That’s usually what I do. So, to test him, I asked him if he was SURE we couldn’t have anybody over to share that humongous monstrosity of Costco Cake with us.

Nope. He was sure.

So, I got ready, called my parents back (because they had called while we were eating dinner), and chatted with them.  As the conversation was finishing up, the doorbell rang. And Jared refused to answer it. Grr. So I had to get off the call and go get it.

On my doorstep, two friends, one from church, one that I worked with, were standing there with big smiles.

And then it all clicked.

The cake. The cleaning. The refusal of inviting people over. The hints to look nice.

That sneaky Jared had been planning a little surprise party for me all along!

A few more people showed up, and then Jared showed off his culinary skills by producing the ice cream cake that  he had spent a significant time earlier in the day making. And we all just talked and hung out and ate ice cream cake and chocolate Costco cake and played us some Guitar Hero.

After everybody left, Jared apologized for not getting me a lot of presents. He thought maybe, because I had been so down lately, what I needed was an affirmation that people did care about me. And was that okay?

Yes, Jared. It was perfect.

All those dear friends who could come and share part of their day to wish me a happy birthday, and especially Jared, planning and pulling together the whole celebration, were the best presents I could have had.

The best presents don’t always come wrapped up nicely in a box.

Sometimes, the best presents you can get are the intangible ones that remind you that you are loved.

And now that I think about it, we never did remember to take any pictures.