Last month, one of my dearest friends in Woodbury had a birthday. And it was a big one---like possibly THE biggest one! And she so happens to be one of those people that never does anything for herself and is constantly doing things for other people. So we knew this was quite possibly our only opportunity to make an entire evening all about her without her having an excuse to get out of it. But knowing Dixie, it had to be a surprise party or else she would have prepared all the food and hosted everyone at her house. Yes, she's just that giving and serving---which made organizing this party all that much more fun.
She knew there were 7 of us going out for dinner in Minneapolis and she was so excited about that! She loves to get dressed up and she is a foodie at heart, but she'll never tell you that! She has 4 kids and her husband TJ has been in Kansas City since this past fall working in his new role for his new job, so whenever he's home, they are soaking up as much family time as they can. So you can imagine how long it's been since she got dressed up for dinner in the city.
The surprises started when she walked out the door....
Yes, we got her a limo. We needed to make it an extra special night and instead of figuring out who was going to be riding with who, we all got to enjoy time together. I didn't realize, however, that this was Dixie's first-ever limo ride! Bonus!
Dixie and TJ
Joel, Terri, Dionne, Dixie and TJ
A picture of Matt and I, just to prove we were actually there
Dionne and Dixie both turned 40 the same week, so we made it a surprise for both of them!
Happy Birthday to the birthday girls!
I had asked Dixie if she wanted to know where we were going to eat or if she wanted to be surprised. She opted for the surprise, but little did she know that there was a surprise waiting for her.
We had the entire loft room over the bar at Cafe Lurcat and it was amazing! (The pictures aren't great because of the lighting, but you can get the idea).
No one was able to get a picture of Dixie when she saw everyone because she immediately buried her head in my shoulder and said, "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you, I'm going to kill you" with tears in her eyes. She finally looked back at everyone waiting for her to see 12 of her closest friends all there to celebrate her. And to say that Dixie has an eclectic group of friends is an understatement. As Dixie will readily admit, "Normal people are boring". (Which always leads me to think, "What does that say about me? I'm not normal? I'm weird? Or at least I'm not boring? But back to Dixie..)
Dixie is someone who loves having people around, but often times she spends all her time making everyone feel comfortable and never gets to enjoy the evening herself (do you notice a theme of selflessness here?) So when we started to plan this party, TJ and I knew that we couldn't have too many people there or Dixie wouldn't be able to just sit back and enjoy herself. We narrowed it down to 6 other couples who were all happy to come out and celebrate Dixie! Everyone who I contacted was so excited that finally something like this wasn't being organized by Dixie but was being done FOR her, which is just a testimony to what kind of person she is!
So blessed by our friendship and so sad that she's leaving me!
The crew
Some of the ladies
One of the couples made Dixie's favorite cake and brought it for us
After dinner, we went to a dueling piano bar and then headed home. It was a fun night, mostly because of the rare opportunity to lavish Dixie with lots of love without her having the ability to turn it down first!!
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