Surprise!

What a great Christmas surprise this year. Papa arranged for Julie, Aiden and Mackenzie to drive up to Boise from Colorado for 10 days over Christmas break, and for Brian to fly in for the long weekend. TJ also knew, as he was to intercept the box of gifts I was going to ship to the Kelso family. A couple of weeks ago, TJ offered to ship the box for me. "Oh great!" I thought. One less thing I have to do--going to the post office with Bailey and waiting in a long line could be tough. So he took the box and brought it to my parents' house and hid it in the shed.

We had gone out to dinner last night with the Coughlin's and the Hirose's at the Arid Club for Christmas/Celebratory dinner, so Bailey stayed the night at Nana and Papa's. TJ and I went over Saturday morning to pick up Bailey and as I walk in, I hear kids' voices--kids that are not Magnus and Max. I thought, "who kids are those?" And then I realized it was Aiden and Kenzie! I couldn't believe it! I was shocked! I started to get tears in my eyes as I gave the kids' hugs. Bailey happened to be sleeping on Julie's chest, so she didn't jump up to say hi. I was in shock: "How did you guys get here?! Where is Brian?!" Julie and the kids had driven all day on Friday and showed up about 5pm and walked in and shocked Nana, who was cooking dinner. She just stood there, holding some butter, speechless.

It was a fabulous surprise and made our Christmas so wonderful to have everyone all together again. Our last family picture with everyone together was September of 2007.