Surprise!

Well, this past weekend was the long awaited 30th B-day surprise weekend for Lexi in Houston. I have to give all of the credit to William, as he is the one who came up with the idea of me flying to Houston to surprise Lexi on her 30th. Then again, who am I kidding? I flew out there by myself with a 15 month old on my lap (except for when he decided to crawl on the lap of the girl next to me on the first flight – that was pretty funny) - because of this, I’m going to take a little bit of credit as well.

Alex was definitely a trooper on the flight out there. He had been really sick all week and had just started to get better that Friday, but he hung in there and in hindsight, it may have worked to my advantage as he slept nearly the entire way there.

We didn’t get in until 11 pm that night, so we decided to surprise Lexi at breakfast the next morning. Lexi and Will are staying at a hotel until their new house is done, so the plan was for Mom and Dad to meet them down at the breakfast at 8 am that morning. Well, they did – except Dad was holding Alex in his arms when he walked in. I didn’t see it because I was behind the corner, but my mom got this photo and as you can see, the look on Lexi’s face was priceless. I think that her first question was “Who the hell is that??”

She had a hard time figuring out how Alex would get to Houston when he hadn’t been there just 12 hours earlier. At that point, I walked around the corner and surprised her. We both started crying – it was pretty cool.

Saturday - we went to see Will and Lexi's new house, which was beautiful! After that, Lexi was hosting a baby shower, so I went to Jess's house and hung out with her, Owen, Amy and Olivia for the day. It was great seeing everyone and although our topics of coversation now cover things like what our kids eat, whether or not they pick their noses and what we do about it and nap schedules (vs. how much we drank the night before (although, had this get together been on Sunday, I could have chimed in on that (see below)...), who we kissed the night before and what the gnomes ate for dinner the night before (yes - this is an inside joke and yes - we were not "sober" at the time), it still felt like we had just seen each other yesterday...

It's scary to think that someday these sweet, innocent looking kids may be talking about the same things we did back in the day. Lord help us...

The rest of the weekend was spent getting manicures and pedicures, having a VERY nice dinner (and way too much of VERY nice wine and champagne) to celebrate her birthday

Going to Discovery Green (aka, mini little playground/waterpark/concert venue for kids) for a picnic





Going on walks

Stealing toys from our cousin

Playing in our cousin's crib



Going the zoo (the picture of which is not cooperating, but picture alex pointing at an elephant...)

and most importantly hugging our cousin...

It really was a great weekend.

I’m pretty certain Alex’s teachers were cursing my name on Tuesday morning, as we didn’t get in until 1 AM earlier that morning, but whatever. It was worth it. And, if it makes them feel any better, I thought that I was about to die when the alarm went off at 5:30 for me to take Deacon out. In the dark. In the cold. In the rain. With Coyotes howling in the background. Ahhhhh how I missed the country life (insert sarcasm)….