Surprise! Mark says ALOHA to another decade gone...

*Editor’s Note: Yes, I’m a wordy blogger, but since I only blog every couple of months, I want our devoted readers to get their money’s worth, so pop yourself some popcorn, grab a Diet Coke (oh wait, that’s MY preferred snack, yes PLEASE get me some, too!), and prepare to sit and read for a while. And as an extra-special treat, I’ve also included a record-breaking number of amazing photos for your gawking pleasure.*

So, in August, Mark celebrated QUITE a landmark birthday – the BIG one, if you know what I mean. Out of consideration for Mark and the spry & youthful reputation he must maintain, I won’t name any incriminating and potentially embarrassing numbers.

I was able to successfully pull off a surprise luau party for Mark’s birthday this year, due to two VERY important factors – I happen to be a fantastic, poker-faced liar, and Mark happens to be extremely gullible and trusting. Oh yes, we make an excellent pair.

Our fellow party-loving friends, Rich and Angie, volunteered their crib for the festivities and we had it decked out with awesome tiki torches (that were later used by kids to toast their crackers – uhhhh, okay, yeah, that must have tasted good), Tiki bubble blowers and glowing lanterns, the world’s worst & cheapest piñata, and ALL manner of tacky Party Store Hawaiian decorations! Then we invited just a few close friend families to Mark, and okay, NOW it’s a party!

{Read this next part as a rhyme, prepare to be amazed at my talent}

Cake and kebabs and pineapples, oh my!

And the final treat – the kids banished outside to eat!

We had some serious limbo competitions going on. Wha??? Really? Okay, well, no, not really. But it was still pretty darn funny!

I think as Eric went under, the limbo-stick-holders lowered the limbo stick onto Eric’s throat thereby cutting off air circulation, resulting in this most hilarious photo (you’ll want to enlarge this one):

Angie came through the limbo gauntlet doing more of a cha-cha rather than a limbo? I dunno, you take and look and decide:

Though he put up a good fight and went through 2 or 3 rounds, eventually Alan succumbed to the worthy opponent of the limbo stick:

I didn’t include this next photo to show off Mark’s stellar limbo skills, since obviously he’s totally cheating (or else too old to limbo!!!) – look closely at this photo – what is Alan doing to his baby?? This cracks me up.

Patricia was quite the game limbo queen, only narrowly losing the adult champion title:

And our adult limbo champion title went tooooo….Melissa! That chica can BEND! Is that NORMAL? Goodness gracious.

Wait, what am I saying???!? That’s just freakin’ FREAKY! Melissa, you EARNED your Dora The Explorer bubble blower prize, that’s for sure!

Our youth limbo champion title was claimed by Nathan (thanks for the correct twin ID, Kelsey!). Indeed, he even dressed for success in a shirt with “AWESOME ends with ME” – how could he NOT win?

And amongst the festivities, a poignant photo of starcrossed love was captured. It goes like this….Shelby R. and Blake M. were born only 3 weeks apart . Their mothers, Estelle and Marci, are good friends and immediately arranged the future marriage of this cutest little girl and grooviest little boy. Over the past nearly 3 years, Shelby and Blake have been thrust together numerous times in order to foster their eternal partnership. Blake has been cooperative and even quite charming and knows that he must cough up some SERIOUS bling in order to win fair (and shallow and jewelry-obsessed) Shelby, but Shelby still has not accepted this future. Doesn’t this photo say it all? Look at Blakey gazing wistfully as Shelby tosses her hair and refuses to have her photo taken with him:

Shelby, you can play hard-to-get for only so long, because look - Brooke was willing to play hula hoops with Blake, and Brooke is awfully cute, too, and MUCH friendlier!

Oh well, if Shelby turns out half as gorgeous as her favorite babysitter, Jamie, she’ll be able to gracefully attend Blake and Brooke’s wedding with Justin Bieber on her arm (or some other kid celebrity, like that kid in the denim Huggies commercials) and grant B&B well and happy wishes.

Oh, but Blakey, look at Shelby’s hula moves!!! OMGoodness, is she a DOLL or what?!?!?? These photos make me melt.

And check out that grass skirt - Angie and I purchased different grass skirts at different times from different places, and these skirts were supposed to fit 14+ and “all sizes”. After we SPECTACULARLY unsuccessfully attempted to try these ridiculous skirts on (NO, there are no photos of this!), we (Rich and Angie and Jordan and I) decided to hang the stupid things on the wall (and around the toilet, in an inspired decorating moment for Rich) for decorations. (I likes me some parentheses, eh?)

Speaking of hula hoops, yeah yeah, I made our guests play that lame hula hoop game where you have to hold hands and get the hoop through and around everyone – needless to say when it was grownups vs. kids, the kids trounced us. HOWEVER, the silver lining….when I first saw this photo below and blew it up, I COULD. NOT. STOP. LAUGHING. Okay, go now, blow it up and look.!! LOOK at Angie and Alan (NOT Angie’s husband) holding hands and GUFFAWING, like they have an illicit secret, with sweet and unsuspecting Rich (Angie’s husband) in the foreground, totally clueless to Angie and Alan’s devious mocking of him. Is this hilarious or what? Is that what you see in this photo, too? Or it really just an innocent, stupid hula-hoop game? Or am I a raving X-rated, dirty-minded lunatic?

All good parties get crashed, right? This party was crashed in AWESOME style, quite literally. Thank you, Aiden, for the party-stopping and jaw-dropping run RIGHT. THROUGH. THE. SCREEN. DOOR. Toppling toddlers, spilling Tiki bubble blowers, crushing tomato plants…. (thankfully this was not MY screen door – VERY smart of me to do this party at someone else’s house, eh?)

Aiden, here comes your mom! Dude! You are SOOOO in trouble!!!

Okay, so you remember (3 hours ago and 10 pages ago) my mention of the world’s cheapest and worst piñata? The stupid thing kept coming detached from its hanging-thingy-thing. Here’s Eric trying to fix it, and look at his kids faces in the background (blow it up) – Rachel looks mad enough to......well, mad enough to beat the heck out of a stupid, cheap-a$$ piñata! Bwa ha ha!!

We finally had to poke the stupid piñata through its eye on a tree branch to get it to stay up!

Jordan put this sorry excuse for a piñata out of its misery by knocking not only the piñata, but ALSO the branch through its eye holding it up, right off the tree! Revenge (especially if it involves hitting something) is schweet.

Check this out, Rich can do quite the rockin’ Maori dance! Or maybe it was just the high derived from piñata candies that got into Rich? And uhhh, Connor was the nearest bystander…

Connor doesn’t know what’s more embarrassing – Rich’s moves or the fact that his mommy made him wear a grass skirt and then took photos to immortalize and preserve this future-therapy-inducing experience.

Happy large-number birthday Mark! And you’d better REMEMBER, for my next “landmark” birthday (yes, that would be 30), *I* do NOT like surprise parties (unless it’s a surprise party happening in Tahiti).

Peace out from the groovy and remarkably photogenic (and yes somewhat nerdy since I dressed us all up in matching Black Dog tie-dye shirts) Ritchie fam: