Christmas Surprises

We had lots of surprises at Christmas this year. My brother, Mike, and I arranged for my mom to go on a crafting retreat weekend with some ladies from our church. I made her a calendar with some pictures from our wedding and on January 7, I wrote in the retreat. Here is her reaction:

My parents also pulled off a surprise for my brother. He has been talking for a long time about finding concert tickets to a band he likes. However, he thought the tickets had sold out and the only ones he could find were over $100. What he didn't know was that my dad had had me buy a ticket on the day they went on sale...looks like Nate will be going to his concert!

Nice surprise...thanks mom

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting on the floor looking through all the sales papers when my mom asked me what I was planning to buy for the gift exchange for our family Christmas party in Canada. "What gift exchange?" I was told that because I'm now 18, I can't participate in the kid's gift exchange and as far as I knew I wasn't invited to join the adults. She informed me that I was supposed to buy at $10 gift to exchange. We're doing a new way of exchanging, where the first person chooses the first gift from under the tree and then the next person can choose to steal that person's gift or open a new one. So basically before next Thursday (we leave for Canada on Friday) I have to come up with a useful, creative, unisex, $10 Christmas gift. Any ideas would be much appreciated!!! :)

What a weekend!

Wow! What a weekend!
My mom turned 50 on Saturday. Unknown to her, her friend and I had been planning a surprise party for her since we had my graduation open house last June!
On Friday night, the doorbell rang, and I told mom to get the door. She did, and there was her mom, dad, sister, nephew, and niece. She was so surprised! Then half an hour later, the bell rang again. I told her it was for her, and there was her brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews! She had no clue that they were coming down from Canada for the weekend! And she thought that was the whole surprise, little did she know....


Saturday morning, we had a big breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls and cheesy eggs. Then I went to church for the craft sale. I had to tell a few little white lies to cover up for the party. I told mom that I had to work at 1:30. So at 1:15, I left for "work".





Instead, I went to her friend's house. I had been there for a while on Friday to prepare food, so most of it was ready. We had to make a few things and decorate on Saturday afternoon. Everyone arrived at Tracy's around 6:15. We all hid in the dining room/kitchen area.




Mom and Dad showed up at 6:45, just to pickup a fondue pot on the way out to dinner, or so Mom thought! So Tracy invited her in for a minute and they came into the living room. Mom looked into the dining room and there were about 25 people in there who shouted "Surprise!" The look on her face was absolutely priceless!!!!





Some of the food! There was a ton, and it was all amazing!!!










Opening gifts....


















Mom and Tracy