Soooprize!

So now about that surprise....

This has been in the works for about 3 weeks.

Let me go back a bit. Chris, Amy and the Girls moved to TX over a year ago when Chris went full time Army. Last year, we did not get to see them at Christmas time.

This year, they had decided to take leave and come to KS/AR/OK for Christmas to see everyone. They even told their dad that they were going to make it, and then somewhere along the line, they decided to fib a bit and tell him that Chris couldn't get leave. Then somewhere in there I think they realized that to make this all happen, they were going to need my help.

They told Gene that they were going to be able to come, but they had to put brakes on the car, and that was going to eat up their travel budget. All along, I was in cahoots with Amy and Gene's boss. Trust me, it was a bed of lies from the whole lot of us. I was actually quite proud of my performance. LOL. I even had Amy call Gene on Wednesday night and tell him that the packages had come in the mail that day - all the while, they were already in Olathe!!

Thursday morning, Gene got up, and within a few min, I was up too, but getting ready secretly in the bathroom. It's not as hard as you might think to flat iron your hair in the dark!! The car had already been 90% packed. I finished up and left around 7:45. I hauled arse to KC.

Gene's boss and I had the whole thing planned. See, Chris also need a windshield so it was an almost perfect cover. Except we couldn't get him to STOP WORKING and go visit his mom for a bit. I ended up calling Wayne about 4 times in the morning. Ooops. I feel bad because I know I was starting to bug him but if I didn't he was going to show up at Dale's Body Shop, who did not know him from adam. LOL. *another lie concocted by me. hehe*

Finally, we got him to the point of visiting his mom, after I lied and said his dad hurt his hip again, and wouldn't go to the dr, so head over there and nag at him. We watched for him, and all of us hid in the back bedroom. After several min of him chit chatting with his mom and dad, we sent Cadience out to ask for a drink of water.

Then we all just stayed in the back room while he was confused all to hell. LOL.
Then one by one, everyone piled out of the bedroom and each person was followed by a "What the hell!?" - with me being last. heh.

Cadience is at the bottom of that dogpile.

I told Gene that he needed to soak it up, because this was the surprise 50th Bday party he was not getting. LOL. That was way too much work. But we did definitely get him.

We talked for a bit, Chris/Amy/Girls went to visit Grandpa Brent really quick over his lunch, and then they came back to open gifts.

{Cadience in her Christmas dress we got her, with one of the 9000 Tinkerbell things I couldn't resist buying}

{Miss No-Front Teef Madison with her HSM pants. She took the best pictures. It was like every single item was made of gold!}

{The infamous Shuffle that I finally conquered. I missed her opening it, I just heard a scream}

{Grandpa and Chey, listening to music together}

{Trying to determine who is due first}

We had a really good time. About 8 times Gene said it was the best Christmas ever, and that he wished it was Friday instead of Saturday. I agree to both! Unfortunately, the day went much too fast and we were worried about the weather, so we had to say our good byes and head out.

Normally the trip from Olathe to home takes around an hour and 45 min, hour 30 min if you drive el Diablo crazy. KC wasn't too bad at all, but we did stay around 60 mph. The further north we drove tho, the slower we had to get. Nodaway county was pretty much the worst. I just started driving down the middle of the highway - I was scared of getting pulled into the ditch by a bit of icy snow. There was hardly anyone out but us. I think we passed a couple cars, and that was it.

Add to that, my windshield almost acted like there was oil on it. Somewhere around 1/2 way home, it finally started to clear up! From St. Joe to home, we drove around 40-45 mph. Coming down the big hill, we did about 20. I didn't spin out once, nothing major happened but I figured if a deer ran out in front of me, he'd just have to go down because an swerving and I was in the ditch.

Speaking of in the ditch, it was very surreal, south of st. Joe, there were many cars in the ditch/median. Just like trash tossed aside..... literally small *piles* of cars. In about 1/10th of a mile, I think I counted 6-7 cars.

So that trip that normally takes 1.75 hours, took almost 3 hours. I was glad to be home!

This morning, I got up and took a few winter pics. Not as bad as the ice storm last year.