Two posts in one day, but one does what one must to catch up with the alphabet in this month's A-Z Blog Challenge.
Day 3-C is for Celebration
We had a good one this past weekend y'all.
Hubs has three siblings, all married, and no two living in the same city or even state. His mom has not had all of her children with her in the same place at the same time since June of 2019. That's a long time to be without your people, people. We decided a reunion was long overdue so we messaged all the sibs, synched our calendars, and landed on the weekend of April 1st. April Fool's Day to be precise, but we didn't think about it at the time. We just picked a date that everyone could make happen and we made it happen.
It wasn't originally intended to be a surprise, but when we realized early on in the planning nobody had mentioned it to my mother-in-law, we decided to keep quiet.
And boy did we surprise her!
We picked her up in Tennessee on our way home from the Bourbon Trail last Monday. We had invited her to spend the week with us at the lake and told her we'd get her home the following Sunday. I got all the beds ready, bathrooms cleaned, groceries mostly purchased, and a lasagne made and frozen ahead of time so she wouldn't be suspicious.
Hubs smoked a pork butt all day Friday and while she wondered why we were smoking such a ginormous piece of meat for the three of us she didn't worry about it too much. Leftovers, right? One brother lives near my mother-in-law and they turned up on our doorstep about 4 PM. I had the drapes closed in the front of the house because my mother-in-law is sharp as a tack and doesn't miss a thing.
Hubs came in the room where she and I were working on a sewing project and told her there was a birthday present for her on the front porch, and he wasn't going to carry it inside. She opened the door to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law exclaiming "April Fool's"!!
And she burst in to tears.
About an hour later hubs sister drove down the drive. She and her family live in Maryland and her hubs was supposed to be with her but had been in Florida all week, and his flight was cancelled. There was a lot of scheduling and rescheduling that ended with him renting a car and driving the whole way here, but more about him later.
I said I was going out to get the mail and when I came back in with my sister-in-law, I said to my mother-in-law, "Look what I found in the mail."
And she burst into tears.
Another hour passed and hubs other brother and sister-in-law, who live in Virginia, arrived. We had them walk around back and sneak in through the lower level. The hubs told his mom to come downstairs, he wanted to show her something. She only got about halfway down when she spotted them.
And she burst into tears.
The gang's all here, or so she thought. She knew my brother-in-law had a cancelled flight so she was not expecting him. We were all standing around our kitchen island talking and laughing and he very quietly walked into the house and slipped into a spot at the island. We all tried our best not to laugh while my mother-in-law looked everywhere in the room except there. He was right in front of her for at least five full minutes before it registered.
And she burst into tears.
All her kids together for one whole entire weekend was so special. We had the best time eating too much, talking too much, and laughing too much.
We went into town to browse the shops, we played cornhole and cutthroat pool, talked about our kids, the grandbabies, work, home improvement projects, travel plans, and our aches and pains because hey, we're all that age. Also, my mother-in-law is a pool shark. Who knew?
The weekend went too fast and these people have trouble NOT talking and standing still for pictures but we took a few anyway. These are her originals-
I love surprises but they are so hard to pull off. You did it and how special!
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing surprise! Those pictures are framers for sure!
ReplyDeleteHow absolutely wonderful!! A post full of so much love!! Thanks for sharing! xo
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness... very special!!! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteOh what a wonderful reunion surprise! My own parents and father-in-law are gone and my mother-in-law not well, so our days of all being together are now mostly memories. We do have a reunion planned for this summer for my siblings and our families. Hopefully it will work out even half as well as your surprise!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful celebration indeed!!
ReplyDeleteGreat job honoring hubs dear mom! Hey, Dear smoked a pork butt on Saturday (12 hours) that fed 35!
ReplyDeleteThat is such a beautiful sorry. I love how you surprised her. The pictures are perfect. I'm so happy for your Mom.
ReplyDeleteOh I loved this post! Such a great thing you all did for your MIL. Sounds like you had a fantastic weekend. (And yes, I sang the title of your post.) :)
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