A Successful Surprise (For Once!)

I am terrible at surprises.

A few months back Jesse was feeling a little down and I thought I’d surprise him by taking him to a Jazz basketball game. I worked out babysitting arrangements with my mother-in-law, asked my father-in-law which seats were the best, and came up with a creative way to reveal the surprise.

A few hours before the game I had convinced Jesse that we needed to stop at his parent’s house because his mom wanted to talk to him about something. He got suspicious (which is what I was hoping for) and told me I was lying (I am a terrible liar.) I told him that his mom actually had a surprise for him but to not say anything because I wasn’t supposed to tell him. I purposely wanted this to happen because I needed to divert his attention to figuring out what his mom was doing for him so he wouldn’t interrogate me about my irregular behavior.

Right as we were about to head out the door I asked if he’d check our account because of the Target fraud mishap. Worst idea ever.

“Hey Toni, what’s this purchase from ticket master?”

I tried to respond coolly.

Someone must have gotten a hold of our account information!” I said trying to hide a smile creeping on.

Remember, I’m a terrible liar.

Smiling, he asks, “Are we going to a Jazz game?”

There goes my surprise.

Then there was Christmas.

I procrastinated and decided to get Jesse’s gift last minute and just my luck they were sold out everywhere. In desperation I bought a few items for Christmas to give him clues to what he’d get after Christmas. Lame, but it was all I had.

I like to give Jesse clues about his surprises because it makes him that much more excited. In the process of giving him a clue I said, “The Duck Dyn….”

“What!? What am I getting that’s from Duck Dynasty!?”

Again, surprise ruined.

But finally for the first time (in a super long time) I was able to surprise Jesse!

I took him up to Heber to see the Ice Castles!

I was worried he may have heard things about them and knew that we were heading towards them but thankfully he was totally surprised.

We had so much fun! They were so beautiful and fun to look at that we decided we had to go again before winter ended. Penelope was so fascinated and was constantly trying to touch the icicles. We loved seeing her smile and laugh at the ice changing colors.

We ended the night by getting some hot donuts (we snuck some pieces to Penelope and she loved them) and some hot coco at Dunkin Donuts.

I love the fun little adventures our family goes on. (And I love even more that the surprise was a success ;)).

Here are some of the pictures we took: