Surprises all around!

My surprise trip to Utah for Thanksgiving was a TOTAL success!  :)

I don't have a ton of photos, except of Janna and Ryan's kiddos, because most the time we had my sister's camera instead of mine, but I'll show you the photos of the kiddies, anyway!  :)

Jan picked me up at midnight on Tuesday/Wednesday and took me to her apartment (which is adorable, by the way).  Of course, being the silly girls we are, we managed to stay up talking until 3 AM, when we finally forced ourselves to say good night and head to bed, because we knew we had an early morning ahead.  Little did we know HOW early...

I was asleep on the couch probably around 3:15 AM, only to be awaken by little Ben (the blond one--and on a sidenote...how in the heck did Janna and Ryan manage to have a blond child?), crying around 4 AM.  From then on out it was a futile effort to sleep.  I heard Ryan get up and get the baby, followed shortly by a blood-curdling scream.  I'm sure some of you mommies with not-so-little nursing babies with sharp teeth can take a guess at the origin and cause of the commotion.  After that, of course, Joseph woke up to find a stranger sleeping on the couch, which was QUITE fascinating, evidently.  He stood a few feet away from me whispering, "Wake UP, wake UP, wake UP, wake UP, wake UP!"  Followed by, "I go over to her, I go over to her, I go over to her..."  After that I heard, "I asleep, I asleep, I asleep, I asleep, I asleep!"  After one final round of "WAKE up, WAKE up, WAKE up, WAKE up, WAKE up!" I gave up and started laughing.  Jan and Ryan tried their best to get Joe to leave me alone so I could get some sleep, but hello!  Of course he had to bring everything he owns to the living room to show me.  After quite a pile had accumulated, I asked him if his mom would be mad if she saw all his stuff piled there by the couch.  He said yes, and we agreed he should probably put it all away.  It wasn't TOO long after that Jan came searching for her phone.  So after an early morning, teaching a CPR class, and traveling to Colorado, I was running on about 45 minutes of sleep.  Awesome, possum.

Jan called my brother-in-law, Sterling, to see if they'd be able to bring some things to her parents when they went, and to covertly find out when they were planning on leaving.  We got the 1:00 PM plan out of him, and Jan and I headed out shopping (thanks for taking the kids so we could run away, Ryan!).  We picked up a few things, picked the kids up so Ryan could study, and headed to my sister's house.  

When we got there at 1:00, we rang the doorbell and no one answered!!  PANIC!!!  We thought Amy and Sterling had left without me!  So Jan headed to the car to get her phone and I banged on the window.  Still nothing.  I turned around and headed back to the car to talk with Jan, when my sister came walking out, VERY confused.  She looked at me and said, "What are you doing here???"  I asked if I could hitch a ride to Vernal, and then we all went inside.  Joe couldn't get enough of my sister's puppy, Dundee!  Luckily Dundee is a good sport--he's not used to having a 3 1/2 year old pack him around by his rib cage!!  And Dundee was totally afraid of Ben--not sure what to make of the not-quite-big-enough-to-be-a-person, and definitely-not-a-dog creature.  :)  

So we got all my stuff out of the car, said goodbye to Jan and the kids, and waited for Ster to get home from work.  He came in and Amy sent him into the living room, where I was "innocently" checking my e-mail.  He stood there and looked and looked at me, super confused.  It was hilarious.  :)  We packed up the car and hit the road shortly thereafter.

The drive was pretty uneventful--I managed to stay awake and talk to my sis for all but about the last 45 minutes or so of the drive (after Ster took over the front seat and I crashed in the back).  Then we got to my parents' house.  The plan was for Amy and Ster to go inside with them and keep them standing by the door, and as soon as the door shut, I would knock.  So I snuck around the side of the house, waited, knocked, and my mom answered.  SHE TOTALLY SCREAMED!!  :)  It was great!  :)  My dad was totally preoccupied by finishing the living room remodel  in time for Thanksgiving dinner the next day, but admitted over and over that he was too in shock to react to me being home.  :)

So, yeah.  That's how the surprises went.  Thanks to all my lovelies who helped work out all the details to surprise my fam!  It was a fun, fun time.