Surprise Christmas

So Matt completely surprised me and my family for Christmas. Well, actually his mom surprised me. Matt planned for us to go to Michigan for Christmas. He had changed the day for the Christmas celebration with his family, saved the money, and planned a way to surprise me. In the process of planning he had to tell his family why he wanted to change the date of the Christmas celebration. He told his mom and she called me all worked up because she was sure we would die traveling in the bad weather. I believe she said "the whole country is pink on the Weather Channel". So she sort of ruined the surprise for me.

But we were able to keep it a complete secret from everyone but Beth and her family. I played it up at every turn with my mom. I told her the ornaments I make every year were just to fragile to ship. I told her we would really miss being home. Sometimes she would talk about how much she wanted Aidan to enjoy the Christmas things she had at her house like Helena and Hunter were. Oh it was so hard to not tell her. Especially when she sounded so sad.

We left on Monday night after Matt got home from work. We heard that the weather was going to be getting bad so we were trying to beat the weather to Michigan. The first night we made it to Des Moines. Then the next day we drove down through Iowa. Are prayers were answered and God blessed us to not get caught in the horrible weather. All the way through Iowa we kept seeing cars, trucks, and semis in the ditch. The road was slick at times and we were going maybe 50 miles an hour.

Then as we got closer to Chicago, traffic slowed way down. Well actually, it came to a stop. Luckily, Matt saw hwy 6 and thought that may get us out of the traffic. It did. We drove through slushy roads and suburbs but we got out of traffic. It may have actually been longer in mileage, but when you are moving you know you are actually going somewhere. By the time we got back on 94 I just wanted to be in Muskegon. But Matt, in his wisdom, said we should stop, rest, and we rejuvenated for our arrival. So we stopped in Chesterton and had a great night at the Best Western.

After a good nights sleep we were back on the road. Driving in Michigan was actually pretty good. We were able to get to Muskegon by about 2pm. Once we got into town we had to have a little fun with my mom. We stopped at Wesco to get a couple of gift cards. I called my mom while we were stopped. I played as though I was really missing not being home for the festivities. I was telling her how I was going to miss the Mexican meal that evening. Anyway, I went on and on. I even asked if she had gotten my package by UPS. I told her that it was supposed to arrive on Christmas eve day. We talked to her almost all the way to her door.

Funny thing, as we were pulling out of the gas station, her husband David was right in front of us. He thought maybe he had missed the announcement that we were coming. In fact, he almost called my mom to let her know we had made it.

So we pull in the driveway, I am hurriedly trying to put fresh batteries in the camera. We decide to send David up with Aidan to the door to ring the bell.

In the picture below my mom first looked through the window at David and kind of gave him a look like "why are you ringing the bell you fool." Then she looks down and sees Aidan.



This next picture is not very clear because my mom just swooped Aidan up and let the door shut. I don't think she really even thought about how we got there or if anyone else, including David, wanted to come in.




Needless to say, it was awesome. I will do another post on our actual vacation.

Oh and not to be forgotten, my dad's reaction. I called him and told him we were in town. I could hear his beaming face through the phone. It was great to be able to surprise everybody. What fun.

Oh and Helena could barely keep it together when she found out Aidan was coming. She talked to me on the phone a couple times during our trip. She said they would postpone whatever activities were taking place until we got there.

Stay tuned for upcoming photos of Aidan and Helena's reunion.