Lenae M. Scott School of Hospitality

This year my parents both hit the milestone of turning 50 so I had the grand idea to throw them a little party. In August I pitched the idea to Leigh Anne and she ran with it. I knew she would do a great job at figuring out all of the details while I was in school. When we both arrived in Shreveport around 4:30 on the day of the party, we were not entirely sure how everything was going to come together. But somehow or another we pulled it off!

1. We got in town approximately 2 and a half hours before the guests were scheduled to arrive. Quite a short time frame to get everything together. I unloaded my car while waiting for Matt and Leigh Anne to arrive. Once we got everything set up at the church we headed out to pick up balloons while the boys went to pick up the taco meat, chips and salsa.

This is where it got interesting. It is now 30 minutes before the party and we are literally driving about a mile down the street. We are about to pull into the parking lot when I see a big...RED...toyota tundra pull up behind us. Me: "Leigh Anne...Dad just pulled up behind us." (insert 15 minutes of freaking out while in party city) Text from Matt: "Negative sighting. Pops is at the house. I repeat, Pops is at the house. I have a location confirmation from cdseagles. Subject was out running at the time of sighting." (insert collective sigh of relief!)

2. This segment of the evening required some intense skill: getting my dad out of the car...and actually to the party. For this task we enlisted Mrs. Linda and Mrs. Mary along with their husbands. We knew it would be pretty easy to get mom to the church: "We need to go pick up some supplies that the middle schoolers collected for our mission trip to Romania." But the catch is Dad need to be there too..."But they are in bags and will be really heavy." Success.

Let's just say they were shocked. Dad thought this was something Mom had cooked up but when he saw her reaction (plastered against the wall) he realized that it was for her too.

3. My friend Leah helped me make the cakes for the party. They turned out looking great and tasted pretty good too! We lucked out with having the perfect amount of cake.

4. We had two sombreros that Chad smuggled out of the house for a "school project" and considered using them as decoration...but then we had the genius idea to make our parents wear them. They were pretty good sports ;)

5. My mom's friends said it perfectly when she told Leigh Anne and I that we had clearly graduated from the Lenae M. Scott School of Hospitality. Mom trained us well! Everything went off without a hitch. I was very exhausted by the end of the party but I felt very grown up all at the same time. And I do believe that Mom has never been happier!