Surprise!

“Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable." I'm sorry Jane Austin, on this point, I must beg to disagree with you. This last weekend, I flew from NC to Portland to surprise my parents and friends. Annette and Kait worked to arrange everything at home from picking me up from the airport to arranging the Friday off for my mom and dad so that we could go to the beach. Here's how it happened.

As part of our vacation, the Dukes were planning to go to NC for a week, and I would go with them. Having good friends there, I couldn't figure out how to visit my friends, Maggie's parents, and travel home long enough to make the ticket price do-able all in a week. But when our travel plans changed to staying in NC for two weeks, I bought the tickets to go home without ever telling Mom and Dad that our plans had changed. My siblings and I laughed in secret and hid our plans in public, anticipating our surprise. When Annette picked me up from the airport and Kait let us in the door, it was late and everyone was already in bed. Annette parked behind my parents' cars so that they would be unable to leave without us knowing. Early the next morning, my mom went to her car but found herself blocked in. When she came back inside to get Annette to move her car, we surprised her with our good morning, and Kait snapped a picture of the best surprised face I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the picture is copyrighted and unable to be published on this site. :-) This is a pre-surprise picture that Kait and I took to make sure that the camera was ready. We were unable to get the same surprised reaction from Dad because he had heard my, unfortunately, loud and distinct laugh before he came downstairs. What followed that moment was a weekend full of activity and fun with family, friends, and company. For us, for this weekend, a surprise brought pleasure and delightful activity.