Catching up post Christmas

Well, I couldn't post it before Christmas as it was a secret but I can reveal it now. We originally were going to stay home for Christmas. My work allowed our group within our department only two days off in the month of December. The rest of the group were not allowed any days in December. Since we had a 10 plus hour drive and a maximum 5 days off to make the trip, combined with the fact that I didn't want to drive 10 plus hours then unload the car then get some laundry done and EmmaLi in bed before getting up the next morning to go to day care and me to work, the thought of going to SW FL didn't thrill me. At any rate, it was going to be the first year in 45 years that I didn't spend it with my family. I thought I had resolved myself to the fact that it was going to be a quiet Christmas with just EmmaLi and I. Then when I said it out loud, I realized I hadn't resolved myself to that fact. I asked EmmaLi if she wanted to stay here with just us hanging out and playing with her new toys or if she wanted to go to FL. She chose FL.

We decided to go to FL but since it was so close to Christmas, I thought we could surprise everyone. Then I thought of the money my parents and sisters would spend to mail gifts to SC only to have to load them into the car and haul them back down to FL. SO I called my Dad and revealed to him our plans and gave him the task of "mailing the packages". It was a task he didn't feel he was up to but decided to give it the ol' college try. He was successful. I called my sister and revealed the plan to her as well so she hid gifts from her kids and allowed us to surprise them. I then received a call from my sister regarding my other sister. She was making "other plans" for Christmas with extended family. So I called her and revealed to her that we were coming and we would like for her to be there. So she did not leave town.

With the plans layed out I arranged to trade shifts with a coworker. Instead of working until 6:00pm I would only work until 5:00. Then I had three hours of vacation time available so I took those to get off at 2:00. Since I didn't take lunch I was able to get off work at 1:00. I picked EmmaLi up and we traveled as far as Jacksonville FL that first night. It worked out great because we were able to stay with friends who were in our travel group for our adoption. We always love to visit with them and the other families from our group. To us, they are all of our extended Chinese family.

On Christmas Eve, we left Jacksonville at 7:30am. We arrived in Ft Myers around 1:00pm. It was time to spring the surprise. I called my Dad and told him we were about 20 minutes away. I asked him to do something with the dog because the dog will bark and give us away. So he put the dog outside. Then I told him I would call and let the phone ring once and then hang up to let him know when he needs to occupy my mom so that she would not see us. So far everything was going well. EmmaLi and I creeped up to the porch and I opened a large gift bag. EmmaLi climbed inside and as I was tying the bag up and about to rignt the doorbell, a county tractor with a mower pulled up and started mowing the grass! My child was in a hot plastic bag (with a large breathing hole) so I didn't want her to be in there longer than necessary so I rang the bell and ran. My mom and Dad came out and my mom looked at the bag. She looked around but didn't see anything. She checked the tag on the bag which said "To: Pat T... Open Immediately". She untied the bag and looked inside. EmmaLi was supposed to jump out and yell SURPRISE!!! but because of the mower, she couldn't hear the rustling of the bag and didn't know when to jump up. So her grandma pulled the bag down off of her and she climbed out.

In the end we were able to surprise my mom and spend the holidays with our friends thanks to many people. I did record the event on the camcorder but it was set to some weird setting and it was much too bright. Additionally, the sound is drowned out by that mower so you cannot hear anything but the mower.

Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the surprise. I thought I had video and I do but it isn't as good as I thought it would be.