Surprise!

Our children always get one BIG birthday party somewhere around their teenage years. Gabriel kept postponing putting an invite list together for me, so Francesca took things into her own hands and decided to log into the school directory and gather the names of his classmates and send them all invites. It was a grand idea. She arranged a surprise 13th Birthday Party/Going Away Party for Gabriel on June 28th. She made the reservations and contacted all of his classmates and friends from church. She was a busy bee.

He was pleasantly surprised! He had a blast and so did all of the surprise guests.

Glow sticks are always a hit at cosmic bowling. Francesca's idea:)

More of her ideas: a t-shirt to sign and an album filled with photos that she collected from Gabe's classmates from the school year.

Plenty of pizza!

Complimentary bowling pin:)

There should be a moratorium on playing the Cha Cha Slide at bowling alleys. A few teens momentarily stopped bowling and broke out in dance for the entire duration of the song.  I was a little embarrassed, but decided to take photos instead of standing there with my mouth dropped open and my eyes bugged out. (I'm glad Gabe didn't know it and learned as he danced along. It made me feel better.)

There was a small percentage of boys in Gabe's class. The scale was definitely tilted in the girl's favor.

It's a generation of selfies.

 Would you like some foot fungus to go with that pizza? Gross.

The sister that made this fun happen.

Andrew giving birth to a bowling ball. Gussy didn't want anyone using his bowling ball, so he tried to set it on the same chair Andrew was sitting on. I don't think that worked out very good.

His friends from church have a great sense of humor. They gave him a very pink and girly 1st Birthday card. Hilarious!

Their gift more than made up for it. He also received sweet letters from the girls that accompanied the gifts;-) They all had perfect spelling and beautiful penmanship.