SURPRISE!!!

So as we ended our first week in April (Oh dear...we are blogging this on the first week of May! HA!) , my mom and dad found out that our Seattle cousins were in Salt Lake City. I don't remember why they were there, probably spring break, but everyone was going to be getting together for dinner on Friday and Aunt Rachel was sad that we weren't going to be there. Mom and Dad were sad too, but there were lots of reasons for them to be home that weekend. Saturday was filled with things to do! I was signed up to do a triathlon and my good friends were getting baptized! But...Mom's wheels got turning in her head and what if we drove up to SLC on Thursday night and then drove home Saturday morning? She talked it over with Dad and they both agreed that even though it would mean a really really late night on Thursday and an early morning on Saturday that it would be worth it.

They decided to surprise Aunt Rachel though. Dad called Aunt Margaret and asked if we could stay at her house this time. Both Mom and Dad had to teach on Thursday night so we weren't going to be able to get on the road until 8 pm at the earliest so it was easier to stay with someone who had no little kids who should be sleeping and getting to school.

Thursday came and as fate would have it, good friends from Mom and Dad's past were in town for a funeral. The Toones live in Sacramento and we rarely get to see them and so we HAD to take the time to catch up. And catch up we did. At Dairy Queen at 8:30 pm at night! I don't think we got a single picture, but it was fun for Cara and me to re-meet the kids. We played with them once a long time ago, but we didn't really remember! We finally got on the road at about 9:30 maybe to head up to SLC.

Mom and Dad were feeling quite silly and decided to be cryptic. As we got settled in Aunt Margaret's spare room, Dad took this picture and captioned it "Siblings Slumber Party". He posted it on Instagram at two in the morning or something so we knew it would be awhile before anyone would see it.

What makes it so awesome is that this room is in Margaret's basement which is a place that Aunt Rachel doesn't go very often. We weren't even sure she would know where we were. And true to form, Aunt Rachel commented fairly early in the morning, "Where is that?"

Oh Mom and Dad were giggling. Do we tell her? Do we just show up at her house? Should we drag her along? Post more clues? We opted to head to the zoo as family and then send her a picture from there to see if she could figure out where we were.

Mom posted this next photo on Instagram and said "Here's a hint...."

It was glorious. Uncle Troy almost immediately saw the picture and commented "Did you come up?!"...followed shortly by "Please say yes." and then "Certainly a reasonable question since this could be a stock family photo." Dad thought he would be funny and said back "We were going to call I swear."

Aunt Rachel actually took the time to text Mom and not comment on Instagram. She demanded to know if we were really in SLC. So we sent her this and "SURPRISE!!!"

She was so happy and so surprised. We enjoyed a VERY busy morning at the zoo thanks to field trips and weird family groups and I think it was still someone in northern Utah's spring break, but it was worth it. We had missed good old Hogle Zoo.

We got to see the trainers working with the lions which was very neat.

Mom has decided she is an orangutan mom. Although Acara, the older orangutan, is actually the sister it was fun to watch her interact with her little brother who she is a surrogate Mom for.

Gotta love the rhino bums...

Iva was tired of walking so we improvised and she loved pretending to be a baby.

She was funny all weekend. You'll never guess what she's pretending to do!

Unfortunately, I ended up getting a bit sick. I had a fever and needed to nap for a bit, but a little ibuprofen and I was a new woman.

It ended up being the most glorious of evenings. We didn't realize how good of a surprise it would be for the Seattle Romneys, but they yelled when they walked in and saw us. The weather was perfect and us cousins played outside for what felt like hours.

Sam was passed around plenty and actually was pretty happy with that.

It was quite the Herculean effort to get a photo with everyone looking. Dad didn't succeed. HA!

The drive home was awfully early. I think Cara even cried "I didn't even get to sleep!" when Mom and Dad drug us out of bed to head home. It was so worth it though. Such a great trip.