Mom's Birthday Article

My mother-in-law's 50th Birthday just passed....

Dinner and a movie were just part of a big eveningA husband puts in extra effort to make sure his wife's 50th birthday is something to treasure.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
Published July 19, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Gotcha! That was Bob Johnston's triumphant exclamation when his wife walked into the surprise 50th birthday party he'd organized for her at the Muvico theaters at BayWalk.

She had known that they were going to a movie and dinner. It was at dinner, she had suspected from recent whisperings and surreptitious phone calls, that she would get her surprise.

"I was wrong," Loretta Johnston wrote in an e-mail telling the St. Petersburg Times about the celebration. "It WAS the movie! My husband had bought out a movie theater (250 seats) for the premier weekend of Pirates of the Caribbean and invited our family and friends to attend a private showing of the movie with us."

"I was totally surprised," she said this week. "My brother said he had never seen my face so beet red. It was such an amazing day."

Her husband had gotten the idea months earlier, when he noticed that Muvico rented its theaters for business events. He spoke with the manager and made arrangements for the birthday celebration that coincidentally fell on the opening weekend of Johnny Depp's blockbuster, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

"It was a lot of money," Bob Johnston, an instructor at Pinellas Technical Education Center, said of the $2,500 expenditure. "I had to buy every seat in the theater. It was funny, because with it being that much money, we never spend that much money without talking to each other."

Facing the predicament of how to consult his wife about the money without giving away the secret, Bob Johnston said he asked her if he could spend it on something "totally ridiculous." She agreed.

"She just knew that I was going to surprise her, but she didn't know where or how and when," he said.

His wife, who is a corporate account manager for Weight Watchers, had her suspicions. Married for almost 28 years, with three adult children, Meghan Alfaro, Phillip and Caitlin, and one grandchild, 17-month-old Mariana, she thought her husband might be organizing a cruise.

"I knew something was going to happen, but I didn't know where or what," she said, adding that she made sure not to eavesdrop on phone calls or ask any questions. "I didn't want to ruin my surprise."

The weekend Pirates opened, her husband bought a couple of tickets for the movie and told her they were going to a movie and dinner. It was three days before her July 12 birthday. Guests, some of whom had traveled from out of town, had been told to gather at the theater 45 minutes early."

And as we walked in, the whole theater just yells, 'Surprise,' and she doesn't know what to do and she just kind of ran back and hid behind the wall," her husband recounted this week. "Once she turned the corner again and realized that she knew everybody, she said, 'Did you rent the theater?' It was just wonderful. We had about 45 people there."

Daughter Meghan gave a PowerPoint presentation of her mother's life.

Bob Johnston is still grinning about the surprise he managed to get past his wife.

"The biggest thing for me was just the thrill of pulling it off," he said. Four years ago, as his 50th birthday approached, she had done the same to him.

"I was determined that since she had gotten me so well, I was going to get her," he said.

How much is my little girl like me?

When I look at Mariana I see a lot of her father. I see Phil's ear's, his smile, and his facial expressions (most of the time). I do see a bit of my own features staring back at me, particularly my big brown eyes. Which I must say look much cuter on her in my honest opinion. The one thing however I might wish she would get from her father, that she inherited from me instead, is her temper and attitude. So in light of that, here's my little anecdote.

Today, my little girl decided that she wanted to get into the kitchen cabinets below the sink... This is where we keep the cleaning supplies and such. I said "Mariana, Get out of there." Now, they get closed and she opens them back up. I repeat myself. They get closed, and she opens them back up a third time. So, I repeat myself and add, "If you open them again you're gonna get a spanking." And she opened them again. So, I close the cabinets walk her away from them and tap her gently on her butt. (I don't beat her or anything, just a light tap.) My daughter got quite mad, went over to the refridgerator, grabbed one of her Leapfrog letter magnets, and throws it across the kitchen floor. I pick up the magnet, put it back and tell her that "we don't throw things because we're mad." So she grabs the magnet again and throws it again. I once a gain tap her on the butt and move all of the magnets out of her reach and say, "There, now you don't get to play with them. Do you have anything else you want to throw, because I'll take that away too?" My nearly 18 month old daughter looks me straight in the eye, nods at me, and walks over to the nearest dog toy, picks it up, and throws it!

Now, what am I supposed to do with that? She deliberately said yes to me and went to find something to throw. Unfortunately, it caught me so off guard that I laughed at her. Definitely not the right response I know. But honestly, the little brat takes right after me. You'd think I might be annoyed after such a display of temper, but I just realized even more that I love that kid. So, yeah, I may have wished she'd get her attitude from Phil, but I wouldn't change her for all the world now.

Meanwhile, immediately after, she took a nap and woke up in a much better mood with brand new child proof locks on all of the cabinets.