date night with the mcphies...and more

seriously moments after i got back from my great escape, we had a fantastic date planned with the mcphies. rachel and scott are two of our favorite-est people in the entire world. it's always hard to find that perfect couple where all four parties get along. and we found that with the mcphies. when leah and ty were just tiny {born 4 days apart} we went on a few fancy dates to nicer restaurants. the two of them just sat and cooed in their car seats while we ate in peace. then we'd go back to one of our apartments and play games {namely ligretto and rack-o}. so...as a final farewell, we decided to recreate that time in our lives. we got babysitters to watch kids and we went to benihana for some delicious eats. 

the sunday before at church i was there a little early to practice for a piano/violin duet. as i sat down before the meeting started i chatted with a neighbor. our conversation went something like this:

neighbor: "so, are you guys getting read to move?"

me: "yup. it's comin' up."

neighbor: "are you excited for your party?"

me: "party?"

neighbor: "hmm...i guess it was supposed to be a surprise party."

driving home, i told ryan about the conversation and he said he had a nearly identical one with someone else. we tried to figure out when it would be. i told ryan i hoped it wasn't friday because i was going to be gone. and saturday we had a date with the mcphies. i figured it might possibly be that night, but decided against it because when we were all trying to figure out what to do, i suggested going to see harry potter 7 {that was kind of a layton-mcphie tradition too} and scott said he'd make reservations at benihana and ryan and i could be in charge of everything else. i figured he wouldn't let me go and buy tickets to a movie for all four of us just to take us to a surprise party. that's quite the waste of $40+! so it had to be the next weekend. and then i figured whoever was planning the party wanted it to be a surprise, so i stopped worrying about it!

fast forward to friday night after dinner. we ultimately decided that we would go to dinner, then drop by my step brother bz's birthday party really quick, then go pick up leah and then play games at our house. on the way to bz's, i decided to get leah first so we wouldn't have to back track. so we went to pick up leah {already past her bedtime and in her jammies} and then headed to the party.

as i walked in the door, i seriously was surprised! it obviously wasn't a party for bz, but rather a surprise party for us!

the decor was forest green and black for tuck, there was some delicious food and so many of our friends were there to wish us well. it ended up being such a fun night and leah was a trooper staying up until after 11:00 partying along with us!

 

{top: ryan, middle: bz and david, bottom: scott, ben, ed}

  {leah, david, ben, ed, scott}

i had to laugh because i had had multiple conversations with multiple friends about trying to find a babysitter for that night. all of the young women were out of town and all of our other friends wanted to come! we were all trying to find sitters for the same thing, only i was the only one who didn't know. i even asked jaimi what she needed one for and she quickly said, "oh, if ben and i don't get out at least once every few weeks our marriage suffers." quick thinking jaim. sweet sarah ended up watching leah for me {and had planned to have her overnight - whoops!} even though she wanted to come. she figured if i couldn't find another babysitter, she wouldn't be able to either and i needed to be there!

{katie, tawni, maren}

when i asked scott about letting me decide what we'd do for the rest of the night, he said he didn't want to take control and risk ryan and i figuring it out. so when he said we could do whatever we wanted, he figured rachel could deal with working it all out. nice. 

and these were the darling parting gifts - 'T' cookies with our new address on them!

we seriously have the best friends in the world.

{rachel, lindsey, molly, kristen, laura, maren, jaimi}

for more pics, check out laura and bz's blog.