For my brother, John's, and his wife decided to have a party for their 10th wedding anniversary. The theme was their favorite movie, "The Wizard of Oz". It was spectacular!

Mom and I helped out by sending out 25 invitations that we made. We drew a winding yellow brick road on the front of blank, white cards and sprinkled gold glitter on the road. At the top was written "Follow the yellow brick road! . Inside were details of time and date and the location was John's mom's house. Below was written, "There's no place like home."

On the day of the party John and his wife helped move all of the living room and dining room furniture into the den. Mom rented five tables, putting them together to make one big table. We rented chairs as well. She found cute Wizard of Oz print fabric at the fabric store and made a tablecloth. She rented some beautiful iridescent glazed china and ruby red glasses from the party rental store.

John and dad went to a prop rental house to pick up some scenery and backdrops from a stage production of The Wizard of Oz. They were great! . These were painted to look like Munchkin Land with the Emerald City in the far distance. Mom took some pictures of them for me to put in my scrapbook. There was even Glinda's floating bubble looking like it was coming toward the village. It was incredible! I felt like I was on the set of the movie.

We finished in decorating just in time and the guests began arriving. No one could believe what we had done. The Wizard of Oz soundtrack playing on the stereo and John and Debbie sat in the seats of honor at the head of the table.

Mom had ordered a complete feast from a caterer. She transferred the food into serving dishes and brought them to the table. The Sebastiani wine was opened and everyone made a toast with our ruby red glasses, to John and Debbie. The meal was very good. Mom ordered an amazing cake from the bakery. It was decorated to look like the Emerald City and below was printed, "Happy 10th Anniversary John & Debbie". The cake had apricot filling and was really good.

After the meal, we found out the real reason Mom said John and Debbie did not have the room at their house to have the party. A hot air balloon was descending onto the dirt road between the orchard and the alfalfa field. Everyone was amazed. John and Debbie got to go up first. When they came down Debbie was crying. Everyone asked her what was wrong, but she couldn't speak so she just held out her hand and showed everyone the diamond tennis bracelet John had surprised her with when they were hight above the ground. After that, everyone got a chance to take a ride in the hot air balloon. The view was fabulous! I had never been in a balloon before and I was glad I remembered to bring my video camera. I never get tired of watching the tape.

When the balloon rides were done, we all went inside and watched The Wizard of Oz. Everyone, especially John and Debbie had a great time, but they left before the movie was over so they could get to the bed and breakfast in time to check in and start their own celebration.