Surprise Party

Tonight was the night of Mum’s surprise birthday party. In the morning we all went to violin lesson (at the super early time of 8am!) and afterwards I had to assist Calum with his recorder lessons again since he’s still recovering from surgery. I drove Calum home after we finished at 10:30am, by which time Mum had gone out. Dad was left home to take us to accordion lessons over in North Shore. The plan was to buy Mum a birthday present afterwards.

When we got home from accordion lesson, we told Mum that we were taking her to the Auckland Showgrounds for the big sale that was being held there over the weekend. We didn’t tell her, but on the way home from the Auckland Showgrounds, we were going to drive to my aunty’s house where everyone would be waiting to surprise welcome my Mum for her birthday party.

There were boxloads of makeup selling cheap

There wasn’t much time to look around at the sale since it closed at 6pm, but we decided to go along to have a look anyway. By the time we arrived, parking was free at the Showgrounds. We got to the main entrance, where we were only allowed in without any handbags or other bags. There were tables and tables of all sorts of things, ranging from sunglasses to makeup (there was A LOT of makeup) to perfumes to car stereos. I wasn’t too sure if some brands of perfume and cologne were famous or not but a few I did recognise included Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Dolce and Gabbana, Elizabeth Taylor as well as others. There were quite a few Casio watches being sold as well, but I wasn’t too sure if the prices they were selling at were actually cheaper than the prices elsewhere or not.

Casio watches

Calvin Klein's "Obsession"

Hundreds of sunglasses

On the way home we stopped to buy some takeaways (to keep Mum guessing if she had suspicions) but I think she started to join the dots of our secret operation on the way to my aunty’s house. She asked Dad why he had a day off work today (since he usually works on Saturdays) but he kept tight-lipped about it. We arrived at my aunty’s house and saw all the cars parked outside, by which time I’m pretty sure Mum had a good idea about what was going on. When we got inside, everyone came up to wish my mum a happy birthday.

The evening was quite relaxed and it was a good chance to catch up with my cousins. There was plenty of food for everyone and a delicious dessert including pavlova, ice cream, fruit saland and cream-filled eclairs to top if all off. My aunty and her family bought my mum a dwarf garden ornament with a pot at the back, while my dad bought her a pagoda and a gardening book. Hopefully it will mean our garden will look lovely in the near future!