Surprise: I

Last weekend (the last one in October 2006), I surprised my mommy. I found one way tickets from Las Vegas to Washington D. C. for only $89. My mom does not live in D.C. but I know someone who does. Her name is Abby. She's so cute you want to put her in your pocket. And she's so short you might actually be able to do it. Abby is going to grad school in Washington. I haven't seen her since I don't know when, so this was a perfect opportunity.

I flew out Friday night at 11. I arrived Saturday morning at 6:30. Flying to the east coast just sucks up a bunch of time. The actual flight is only 4 hours. That's not really enough time to get any sleep. Especially when you have an iPod, a book, and Direct TV. I put all my eggs into the Starbucks basket, assuming we would just see one on the way. We did not. We stopped at a 7/11 to ask where the nearest Starbucks was and not only did they not know, they looked at me as is I were crazy to want Starbucks over 7/11 brand coffee. Strange ducks indeed.

We arrived at my mom's just in time to catch my brother leaving for the Navy - Notre Dame game. It couldn't have gone any better if I had tried to plan it. Here's how the actual surprising went down.

Vicki saw us coming, and told my mom she heard something down stairs. My mom said "Oh. It's probably Derek."

Derek said "it's not me," because he is captain obvious.

My mom was standing at the top of the stairs in the dark. She turned on the light and then I got scared, because she kind of grabbed her chest and started to back up. I thought she was going to fall over and have a heart attack.

But she stood her ground. I got to the top of the stairs and I just stood there and (as predicted) burst into tears. She said "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it." See, I told her I had a surprise for her way back when, and she convinced herself that I was coming, even though I did my best to convince her otherwise.

Then we spent the morning reliving the surprise. Vicki told my mom she needed $42 for it, which convinced my mom that I was sending something C.O.D. She was thoroughly confused. A lot of people knew I was coming and none of them spilled the beans. That in itself was impressive.

After we got over the crying and the excitement, we went for a drive. My mom and Vicki bought a house. We drove by the lot, where we noticed the "sold" sign has come down. Abby hopped out to repair it. Considering the rain and the mud, it probably wasn't the best idea, but Abby is just too helpful.




The neighborhood seems like it's going to be lovely, once the houses are built. There is a baseball diamond right in front of their street. When we drove by, there were geese. Vicki hopes they don't come back from winter migration. Don't ask me why, she has a thing against migrating birds.

After we saw where, we saw what. We drove to a model of their house. This is what my mom's neighborhood is going to look like, minus the forestry. And After all that driving, we were hungry.