Thomas was upset he couldn't surprise our mom at Christmas, so he decided to surprise her when his training was done. Originally his training was supposed to end July 7, but then it was decided that there wasn't any point in coming back for two days after a three day weekend for the 4th. Apparently he found this out early on, but didn't tell anyone at first. He had to tell our dad because our dad is retired and plays on the Internet all day and was always looking at Thomas' company's website, so he would've seen the change in date. He told Ian so there'd be someone to help him plan the surprise. He wasn't going to tell me, but our dad forgot and told me. But that's ok, I love planning surprises! We came up with lots of fun ideas and put a lot of work into setting it up, it was so much fun! Thomas had an overnight flight so Ian picked him up at 10am and took him straight to his unit to check in. Meanwhile our mom had spent the night at my house and was helping with the baby. There was a lot of texting going on to make sure we got the timing right because we didn't know ahead of time how long Thomas would need to be at his unit and I kept worrying my mom would think I was being rude or that something was up. Finally the boys were in place so I "randomly" suggested to my mom that we go to the family farm because I needed to pick up something from my aunt. Ian and Chris were waiting for us and indulged me in taking Lauren to see the horses, to make it all seem natural. Then I suggested we take a walk in the formal garden and take some pictures. We took these first to keep things natural.
Then it was time for the surprise! We got mom in position, Chris gave the code word to Thomas, and click!
I said we better preview the picture and make sure we like it. So Chris shows my mom the picture and we all smile in anticipation and she says, "It looks fine." What?!? We all ask if she's sure, Chris has her look at it again and again she says it looks fine. So I suggest we take another, "just in case". So we get back into position, Chris gives Thomas the code word again and zooms in.
We have her check it and again she says it's fine! At that point I just started laughing. Chris started to have her look at it again, I started to say, "What's behind us?" when Thomas, who was hot and tired of hiding, just walked out. Then the jumping and screaming and crying and "What are you doing here?" finally began.
We then showed her the pictures again and she felt a little silly, blaming it on the dark screen and the fact that when someone asks you if you like a picture, you really only look at yourself. My only regret is that we didn't think to record it! But otherwise it was perfect!
And then Lauren finally got to meet her Uncle Shoopa!
