We did it!

As you probably know, my youngest sister Laura lives in China.  It is a temporary situation while my brother in law completes his education, but we still miss her terribly.   A couple months before Christmas, Lollie found a good price on an airline ticket and she decided to give Mom the best Christmas present ever.  She booked a ticket to fly in the day after Christmas.  Everyone, except Mom, knew of the plan.  The plan was to fly in the day after Christmas.  Jeremy had to work that day and got off just in time to pick her up from the airport.  He was going to bring her to our post Christmas family celebration and Laura was going to completely surprise my mom. 

There was a little hitch, though.   Laura had a connecting flight in New York.  New York decided to host one of their biggest blizzards in history.   Laura’s flight got cancelled and minor chaos ensued.  I still am shocked to this day that Mom didn’t figure out something was going on.  During our family celebration, Emily and I kept ducking away to field phone calls with Laura in an attempt to figure out how the heck we were going to get her to Georgia.  This even involved many text messages during our family dinner – this is something I would NEVER do.  We managed to get her a hotel room and a dear family friend was able to get her a flight home….three days later.   To get, her side of the story, you have to read my sister’s blog post about it.  It is HILARIOUS!

So we figured out how to get her home, but now we had to come up with a new way to surprise mom (who was still clueless).  We casually brought up that we needed a family lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  Dad picked Laura up from the airport and drove to meet us at the restaurant.  Initially, dad just came in and sat down and we proceeded to go about our lunch.  At this point, Laura casually walked in  and sat down to Mom.  Mom’s back was turned, so Laura tapped her on the shoulder.  My mom initially greeted her like everyday and then it hit her that Laura lives on the other side of the world and is now sitting here in front of her.  The look on her face was priceless!  It was a great moment!

I brought Mikayla to dinner with us.  She had no idea either (I feared that she would blab to mom).  I think she was just as flabbergasted as mom was!

We had a such a great time with Laura while she was here.  I think we ate at nearly every restaurant and fast food place in Alpharetta.  For most, that wouldn’t be bad because you know you can diet and return to healthy eating and drop the extra weight.  Yeah, when you are pregnant you don’t have that luxury.  I did go back to healthy eating, but did not lose any weight.  Oh well, I can do that later!

Ironically enough, Laura got stuck in Atlanta at the end of her trip thanks to another snowstorm in New York.  We decided that Laura needs to steer clear of New York layovers during the winter and that she should never fly without her husband.