The surprise weekend

I'm writing to you from the living room of my parents house in Delaware after the weekend of the surprise 65th birthday celebration of my mom. We've been planning the trip and her party for nearly a year, and it all came together quite well -- well, there were some hitches.

• √ -- Flying with a child with a high tempature (Abigail had a 104? on Friday when we arrived in the afternoon, by evening we had to take her to a walk-in clinic nearby to get her some medication for strep throat)
• √ -- Barely making the flight (there always those things you forget, such as having cash on hand)
• √ -- Forgetting clothes -- I actually forgotting ALL my clothes; somehow (except the ones I had on), which resulted in a crazy Saturday morning before the party of my dad having to descretely go to JC Penny's to find me a nice dress shirt and pants without my mom finding out what he was doing or why he was going out -- I'm sure I'll see them lying on our bed when we get home this evening
• √ -- Lack of sleep
• √ -- Eating too much
• √ -- Another child getting sick (last night Elliott started to get the fever, etc, etc -- so we again went to the walk-in clinic but had a different Dr who reminded me exactly of Jan from The Office; with as wonderful a bedside manner too)
• √ -- Drinking too much (the combo of Bailey's and Grand Marnier is quite tasty)
• √ -- Seeing relatives who marvel at the sight of my monstrous beard which is accompanied words like "grizzy", "thing", "hairy", "bushy" and "ZZ Top"
• √ -- Relatives who say they haven't seen you since "you were this tall"
• √ -- Child saying "penis" in public, loudly
• √ -- Wonderful moments of sharing memories (from friends and relatives) about my mom

It's been a great weekend and I'm glad that we were able to surprise mom (hopefully I was able to get some good pictures too). Happy Easter friends, have a wonderful, meaningful (or not), reflective, relaxing weekend!