This February 2026 marked a big milestone for Jeo. It was 50 years in the making. Jeo turned the big 5-0. He doesn’t look a day over 35 though. 😉
I knew I wanted to make this occasion a very special one for him. I had it in my head what I wanted to do. I just needed to get the pieces together and I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that because I had never planned an event like this before.
How would I get my family here? Timing was absolutely perfect. My aunt and uncle came in for their annual visit. When they do this, my siblings also come into town. I quickly told them what I was planning and they were on board with the idea and excited to be a part of it.
My next surprise was getting his family that he had not seen in many years to come visit. Keeping in mind, I am not fluent in Spanish. Here I am reaching out to his family using Google Translator and my phone with Facebook translating my invitation. Luckily, he does have family who speaks English. Once again, I did not realize how big his family was, but at this point, the more, the merrier. I received confirmation his family was able to come visit.
Where to go? I had no idea how to reserve a banquet hall or catering. I started asking around looking for advice about finding a venue to hold his party. A friend gave me the advice to reach out to Maggiano’s Little Italy in Scottsdale. They have rooms and it’s a restaurant with very good food. I reached out to them telling them what I wanted to do and before the call was over, I had the room reserved.
Now that I had the room, my side of the family was in the loop and his side was as well. I now needed to send out the invitation. I found an app that would allow me to type up the invite and it would send an invitation to everyone I selected in my address book. That was great, but how do I get all of his pickleball friends?
I knew Jeo knew a lot of people, especially playing pickleball, but how do I reach out to them? I do not play pickleball with him. I remembered one person I had met during one of Jeo’s games. I messaged him through Facebook hoping he would not tell Jeo and would not think I was some crazy person sending him a message. He was more than eager to assist with inviting everyone. Now, when I say everyone, I mean everyone. The response was so fantastic, but now my guest count exceeded my initial count. I was not about to turn anyone away. The more who could come to the dinner, the better.
I contacted Maggiano’s asking if I could get a bigger banquet room. They were able to accommodate me without issues which was great. This party is quickly becoming a large one and I am excited at this point.
I then decided we were going to make this a more formal dinner. It is not often we see everyone dressed up. Now I had to find a way to get Jeo to buy a new suit (which is what he’d been wanting to do). I did tell him we were going to a different dinner location and we were all going to dress up. The boys were going to be in their suits so we needed to get him his suit. That was fun. He found a suit and boy he looked spiffy. At this point the excitement is getting to my breaking point and I cannot tell him anything. Talk about torture for me.
Now was time for the little things, which made a big different, visiting the restaurant to see what the room looked like. We did not exactly what the room looked like aside from pictures online. Diego, Jade, Megan, and Brooke joined me going to Scottsdale to look at the venue. I was very much impressed. It was a very nice facility.
The restaurant allowed a TV to be set up. I worked with Emilio to upload pictures of Jeo so that during the event, the pictures would scroll allowing everyone to see them. I could not wait for everyone to see how he has changed over the years (like fine wine, of course).
Diego had a speaker. He offered to bring it in allowing us to connect Spotify to it so we had music. Everyone was helping out which was a huge help for me because I did not have all the equipment and there would have been no way I could’ve brought it without being obvious.
I maintained communication with everyone reminding them of the event date. The next thing we had to do was get the dinner choices picked out. Jade made up the form and we sent it to everyone allowing the guests to help decide what to eat. They were eating the food, so why not ask them to help me pick, right?
At this point, we are about 3 weeks from the event date. I am texting and hoping that Jeo does not have to look at my phone for something because he may see the messages. I was so excited to be meeting his family as well. I am sure they thought I was bugging them, but I had so many questions and I could not wait to see them. I was also on Facebook because Jeo’s pickleball friend made a message group with Jeo’s pickleball pals and I was answering questions there.
I guess I was doing well because he never said anything to me, nor did I see him needing to use my phone for anything. There were times when I came so close to telling him something, but I was good not to slip up at all. I couldn’t wait for my family to get here to help distract me.
Let’s fast forward to the day before his party. This was Friday afternoon. I was messaging Jeo’s family member talking about the hotel say and transportation. It was mentioned the transportation they were planning to use. I told them that transportation was not going to work for all the travel that we were doing. I knew where they were going to be staying for the weekend. How was I going to work this in? I had to think, but it did not take long. Why not give Jeo a birthday weekend? I told his family that we would pick them up from the airport and since the hotel is really close to us, we could take them and we could drive them to dinner, etc.
I told Jeo that I was going to take him somewhere and I wanted him to drive. Because he was more familiar with the airport, I did not want to be driving around. When his family landed, I told him what door to go to. He pulls up to the door. I did not know exactly what he looked like, but he quickly recognized one of his family members. He was excited to see his cousin and her kids.
The start of his fun weekend is finally here and I am so excited. Saturday morning, we all took Jeo out for breakfast. It was the first time my family and his family had been to this restaurant. Emilio and Brooke came in from Chandler to join us. It was a very nice event. After breakfast everyone came back to the house to relax and chat.
Jeo cannot go long without playing pickleball. He invited his nephew to go to the pickleball courts. He did not just want to show him the courts, but play a couple rounds with him. His nephew was able to keep up very well. After we were all done watching and playing, it was time to prepare for dinner.
Jade, the boys and their partners were going to take care of Maggiano’s and get everything set up. Jade had to use the excuse she needed to get ready at Diego’s place. She goes over there often. It is not uncommon for her to do this. While they were getting the room all set up, we were at home getting ready ourselves.
Matt drove behind us. Throughout the trip to the restaurant, I was texting Diego letting him know where we were at so he could keep communication with the guests. I stressed the importance of being there early so that Jeo would not see the guests walk in when we walked in.
We walked into the restaurant. I had it already pre-planned that when we came into the restaurant, it would look like we were checking in for a reserved dinner and nothing more so the surprise wasn’t given away. The hostess took the menus and walked us to the banquet room. She opened the door and all the guests celebrated with their surprises.
After he greeted every one, we had dinner. The food was all that we could eat. There was no reason for anyone to go home hungry. In between the courses, he was walking around talking to his friends. I too went around saying hi to those I knew and introduced myself to those I had not met before. Some of the guests I had met through texting and it was nice to finally meet face to face.
After dinner, Jeo and the guests danced. It was great to see him having so much fun. I cannot describe the feeling that overwhelmed me. It was quite emotional for me and although this party was for him, I was the one truly blessed to see him, his kids, his family and friends all having a very good time.
It came time to sing happy birthday to Jeo. I got him a special cake. Before the party, I had asked Emilio to go to the bakery to try it to make sure it was something Jeo was going to like. Emilio went to the bakery to pick it up and it turned out perfect! This cake was just for Jeo while the rest of the guests were given the dessert options at the restaurant. After dessert, Jeo opened his presents. You would think that he would open the present and be cordial about it, but he was so funny. It was great that his guests went along with his jokes and everyone laughed along with him. After the gifts were all opened, I took a moment to thank all the guests for attending his special day.
Ending this day’s event, I would like to say thank you to everyone who volunteered a lot of time to make all this magic happen.
Megan, Jade, and Brooke, thank you so much for helping with the decorations. They were absolutely beautiful and I loved how the tables looked.
Diego, thank you for taking the responsibility of making sure the guests knew where to sit, bringing the speaker, handling the music, and taking care of things during the dinner.
Emilio, thank you for allowing me to use your TV. I know it was huge and that you had to carry it to the car and back to home. Thank you as well for going to the bakery and picking up Dad’s cake. I know you had to sacrifice your taste buds trying a piece of that delicious cake before purchasing the whole cake. It was much appreciated.
Jade, thank you for making the form allowing me to get feedback on what the guests would like to eat during the event.
Demario, thank you for using your car to transport the TV. When Emilio bought it, we used Dad’s truck, but this time we could not do that without him knowing. It was a tight fit, but it fit perfectly. Thank you for taking it back home after the party was over.
Guests, thank you all for joining Jeo’s special day. This would not have been possible without all of you being a part of his life.
-Alisha
Click the image below to view pictures from the weekend.
Here’s a compilation of the videos taken from the dinner.
