The week before Father's Day we found out we would have the opportunity to take a long Father's Day weekend trip. We kicked around several ideas locally but finally settled on making the trek to Illinois to celebrate with our families. Since we bought the plane tickets on Monday with plans to fly out on Wednesday night we decided it would be really fun not to tell anyone we were coming and make the trip a surprise. For the first time ever, we flew into Midway, got a rental car and drove to a hotel in Naperville for the night. It was so fun to be sneaky and to have a rental car to drive around for the weekend. Owen was a little confused about why there weren't any grandparents waiting for us at the airport and when we told him he'd have to sleep for the night in the hotel before he could see his Grandmas, he was a little unhappy. But once we told him all about how we would surprise everyone the next morning, he settled in and went to sleep.
The next morning we figured out the logistics of where everyone was, and decided it best to get Grandpa Bill at his office first. We parked the rental car next door and snuck through the grass along the side of his office. We put Owen over the porch railing and told him to knock on the door. Grandpa Bill was astonished to see Owen standing there when he went to answer :) ...Surprise numero uno= Success!
After leaving the office we picked up Aunty Laurie who knew we were in town. Hey, we had to tell someone! All she knew was not to make plans for the weekend, and that possibly the night before we had been in a hotel. Everything else was kept a secret from her too though. She was happy to see us, though not very surprised, and she came along to do the rest of the days surprising. Next up- Uncle Cody and Aunty Sarah. We should have known full well that high schoolers, on summer break, are not awake or alert at 10:00 in morning. However, its been almost 10 years since we were teenagers in high school and we fully expected them to be bright eyed and busy tailed when we arrived. That was not the case, however, as we rang the door bell, the dog barking, and the house the dark. Robert, being the mature 27 year old big brother decides the best response to is to walk full circle around the house, knocking on every single window until the dog wets herself and Sarah is convinced there is a stalker out to get her...Finally the poor girl musters up the courage to look out a window only to see her nephew, sister-in-law and Laurie waiting at the door. Surprises number 2 & 3= mildly successful, but also anxiety causing.
Now it was on to Grandma Donna, who was also at work. We dragged Uncle Cody along with Aunty Laurie on this mis-adventure with us and decided it would be fun to send Owen through the front office door with Uncle Cody. Grandma was expecting to see Cody, who had called earlier to say he was coming to pick something up, but she was super surprised to see Mr. Owen walk into the office as well. The entourage soon followed and we forced Grandma to join us for lunch even though she had already eaten. Surprise #4= Success!
Finally it was time to wrap up the days surprises by getting Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Steve, who we were pretty confident had just arrived home early in the afternoon. We parked the car behind a tree out front and sent Laurie in first. She tried to mumble to them about going out to lunch with a friend or something or other to distract them. We quietly opened the door and shoved a 1/2 asleep Owen into the house. Grandpa was the only one with a clear view of him and all we could hear was him saying "Oh my God! Oh my!" and Grandma Bonnie saying, "WHAT? WHAT IS IT?" Finally Grandpa mustered up the will to say "Uh, its OWEN!" HAHAHA! Surprises number 5 & 6= SUCCESS!
After all of that we spent the weekend watching the Aunts play softball between rain storms and going out to eat. I forgot my camera in my haste of planning and packing but here are a few pics from my moms camera-
Owen received an early birthday surprise of his own on this trip when Grandma and Grandpa came home with this! They left in search of a battery for an old one that didn't work and came home with a brand new one! I think he likes it...
And the final surprise of the weekend was Sunday morning, Father's Day, when Owen and I gave Robert his gift. Since the iPad was released, Robert had been dropping very subtle hints about just how badly he wanted one. He would make understated comments like "I need one! I can't live without it! It would make my life so much easier! Its so cool!" And if we were within 10 miles of an Apple store he would ever so slyly suggest that we drive over just to "take a look." Ok, so a woman can take a hint...though I am pretty sure I did a really good job playing it off and he never expected that I'd buy him one. The actual gift didn't arrive until almost 2 weeks later due to the stupid thing being sold out at every store within 50 miles of Washington DC and Chicago (yes, we checked there too!) But when it came, the Heavens opened up and the angels sang out in a choir of "Robert, you better love your wife and get her the most amazing Mother's Day gifts for the next 5 years" Anyway...without further ado, here it is!
PS- Owen likes it too ;-)
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