As you can imagine we had a great time with our surprises. I was thinking, what could I do next to top those? I thought of an idea.
~N~ knew that I had planned on coming up to visit him. The original timeframe was in August but then I found out the huge bike rally in Sturgis was happening that same weekend so I decided to change my plans.
I looked over the calendar and saw that my next vacation would be a perfect opportunity to surprise him. I called my son ~H~ and asked him if he could take off of work and I asked my husband to ask off as well so that we could surprise ~N~.
I was excited because my idea to surprise ~N~ was turning from something I was thinking about into a reality!! I purchased plane tickets for all of us and began doing a little research into places and things I would like to visit.
The hardest part of this whole thing was keeping quiet about it. I refrained from posting on Facebook because I didn't want anyone who knew about the surprise to accidentally say something that would tip ~N~ off that we were cooking up a surprise. We didn't even really tell family - we were keeping this TOP SECRET!
~M~ and I got up super early on Friday morning to catch a flight to Rapid City. My folks were kind enough to also get up early to drive us there. It was raining cats and dogs and part of me was just a bit worried that we might be delayed. I was too excited for the surprise to happen that I didn't want anything to delay it.
We arrived at the airport and were able to catch our plane without incident. I breathed a sigh of relief that things were in motion and then anxiously awaited for our plane to land in Denver because that's where we were meeting ~H~!
~H~ arrived and we got ourselves something to eat. It was good to see my oldest son and we had fun catching up before our next flight.
Once boarding began I became more and more excited. This was finally it! We were so close to seeing ~N~ and surprising him. I could hardly stand it.
The plane touched down in Rapid City and we headed toward the rental car pick-up area. I had rented a van in case any of ~N~'s friends wanted to come along with us to eat or sight see.
As we headed toward Ellsworth AFB ~N~ calls and says that he's already off work. Umm...awesome, right? Yes and no. I was very excited because that meant more time to spend with him but then again we hadn't worked out the final details for our surprise. We quickly decided on the "FUDGE FOR SALE" and "TAMALES FOR SALE" idea that had worked so well previously. I dropped ~M~ and ~H~ off at Grizzie's which is a coffee shop/gas station right outside the base gates.
The only glitch in our whole plan was the fact that I hadn't actually worked out the details of how I was going to get ~N~ to the coffee shop/gas station that I had dropped ~M~ and ~H~ at. Hmmm.
I pulled into the base visitor center and walked in and hugged ~N~. I then told him we needed wait to check in as I had left my driver's license at Grizzie's. Really? That was the best lie I could think of off the top of my head? Well actually, yes it was.
~N~ didn't understand why or how I left my license at Grizzie's but he didn't ask too many questions. I then told him I had forgotten to call ~M~ when I landed so I needed to call him.
As I was calling ~M~ I told ~N~ that the airlines had lost my box that contained the tamales, hot sauce and fudge and that they hopefully would find it and deliver it later. As we pulled around to the other side of Grizzie's I said to ~N~, "Hey look! Those two guys are selling fudge and tamales!" ~N~ was totally surprised, especially about ~H~ being there!
It made sense that ~M~ might be there but he had just seen a video that ~H~ had posted early that morning so he was totally blown away that ~H~ was there with us. This was so much fun!! I told ~H~ to show ~N~ what he had brought. They walked around to the back of the van and opened it to reveal ~N~'s guitar. ANOTHER SURPRISE! It was so good to see the huge smile on ~N~'s face. I would do it all over again just to see the joy on his face.
Ultimately I am so blessed with an awesome family and I guess that's one of the reasons I like surprising them. I like bringing them some happiness, however big or small, to their lives. Makes me all teary-eyed just thinking about it. :)
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