Week Off - Day 1

I have been on vacation from work since July 1 and am loving it!

The reason I took a week off was because my family had planned to surprise my parent's in honor of their 70th birthdays. My dad turned 70 in February and my mom turns in January. We started planning all of this last year and it had many variations. The final plan was to all come into town on Saturday, we hired a photographer and we were going to surprise my parents and then play 9 holes of golf.

Here's what ended up happening...

I had talked to my mom a bunch before I started the drive home. She for sure knew that Kris and I were going to be home, but wasn't supposed to know about everyone else. I talked to my mom on Tuesday and she said, 'when is everyone else coming into town?' I said, 'what are you talking about?' she repeated herself, and again, I said, 'what are you talking about?' She said, 'oh, just you and Kris.' and I said, 'yes'... so I knew my mom suspected something, but she didn't know what.

Nate and I started our 19 hour drive on Thursday after work. We left at 7:30pm and ended up arriving in Bloomington around 2:00pm central time. We made pretty good time and took a detour and got to see the Chicago skyline. (we missed our turn off but it was a way prettier drive then taking 80 through the yuck).

We got to my parents house and hung out with my sister, Kris's husband, Chris and their two kids and my parents for a bit. Christopher went to pick up Kristin at the airport and my parents took Nate and I and Kris's kids to State Farm Park. On our way home from the park, Kris's kids looked up at my mom and dad and said, 'when are all of our cousins coming into town?' My mom was like, 'Uh, I'm not sure.' Sydney then said something along the lines of 'Yeah, all of our cousins are coming into town and we are going to get a t-shirt and then we are going to get our picture taken and then we are going golfing.' I just looked at Nate and was like, 'Sometimes, you just have to laugh because you might just cry'... The surprise was up with less then 24 hours before the big event. It ended up being a blessing in disguise because it was far less stressful and we got to spend a few more hours together with all of the family.