Labor Day Weekend

My mom turned 50 on September 5th.  (I know, right?! She is so young!) 50 years old with 8 grandkids...pretty amazing. To celebrate, my sister and I (mostly her) came up with a plan to surprise my mom. I had previously been trying to work out a trip to Omaha to visit my friend, Emily, over Labor Day Weekend, but it just wasn't working out for me to be able to go. So, when the idea to surprise my mom came up, Chad and I decided that it would be worth the money for all of us to go -- to see Emily and her new baby AND to see our families all in one trip. Omaha is only a few hours from where our parents live, so my sister and I decided to have my mom's birthday surprise at Henry Doorly Zoo. My mom, dad, Grandma and sister + family drove to Omaha on Saturday morning.  Chad, the kids and I drove over on Friday and stayed the night with Emily. 

My mom always has a hope that I will show up whenever there is a celebration of any kind to be had, so I did my best to throw her off the scent during the week leading up to her birthday. I lied. A lot. (for a good reason, right?)  Even after all of my story-telling about disappointment and BBQs and no money, I wasn't sure if I had killed her hopes or not. My sister and I had planned for all of us to meet at the front gate, but somehow, they walked right by us without seeing us or us seeing them. Not sure how that happened...  My sister didn't want to stand around waiting (because my mom would get suspicious), so they decided to go to the aquarium. It turns out that my mom was still holding out some hope, but when we weren't at the front gate to meet them, she resigned to the fact that we weren't coming. My sister discreetly texted me to tell me where they were. Well, she attempted to tell me, anyway. The text said "Scott aq".  That's it.  Um, what????  (wow, this story is really long...sorry!) ANYway, I had no clue what she was talking about, so she escaped to the bathroom so she could call and explain to me that they were at the Scott Aquarium. It ended up being a good thing, because all the time that had passed without us showing up just solidified to my mom that we weren't coming. So, when I walked up next to her and pointed to the penguin she was looking at and said, right next to her face, "Those are my favorite!", she was honest-to-goodness surprised. She looked over at me, then back at the penguin, and then back at me with this classic look of surprise on her face. It was SO great! 

We spent the rest of the morning looking at the animals, and then ate lunch all together. After lunch, Chad and Isaac took off to drive to Iowa where they would also surprise his family. Aubrie and I stayed at the zoo for the remainder of the day, and then went out for dinner with my family. After dinner, we Skyped with my brother and his wife for a few minutes while my mom opened the quilt that was from us kids. After that, my parents took me and Brie over to Emily's, and I stayed there for the rest of the weekend. Another friend, Lindsay, was also there with her newest little boy, and the 3 of us had a lot of fun catching up! Chad and Isaac came back through on Monday and picked us up, and then we drove back to Colorado. There are A LOT of details that I left out, but you didn't get on here to read a novel, right?  So, here are a few pictures from our fun Labor Day weekend! (I will put more in the September 2010 Picasa Album.)