Surprises

I haven't posted for a while, since, I never know when my mom will be reading this ;)
We had planned a surprise party on Thursday for her - she just turned the BIG 5-0!!! This past week was quite the full week for us...with the darn fire we were out of commission for a while in the kitchen and then discovered that the stove/oven are officially doomed-there was a wire that sparked when we put it back against the wall from cleaning under it and the wire has melted itself to the stove...we now have the tragic event ahead of us to tell our landlord...we were trying to fix it ourselves to save ourselves from being responsible for purchasing a new stove, but it will not be the case I'm afraid and in the meantime I had been the one in charge of making the dessert for mom's surprise party-I ended up having to order cookies from the local college-they were delicious, but cost money-darn it!
Our school district takes a Spud Harvest Vacation in October for about 10 days (including weekends) for the farmers to get all the help they can from the local High school kids and some parents throughout the community as well...initially this was scheduled for Oct. 1-10, but they have the right to change the dates of this vacation according to the needs of the local farmers...it ended up being changed to Oct. 6-15...AFTER we planned mom's party-so Bryant was going to miss Thursday and Friday school.
Last week we found out he had his first field trip scheduled for Thursday...oh to have a kindergartener doomed and hate his parents for the rest of his life if he didn't get to go on his first ever field trip (he was threatening to stay behind without us)...I finally got the courage to ask his teacher if he could be allowed to attend the field trip with the morning class as he is in the afternoon class...she was very gracious and allowed this-yeah! he won't hate me for missing his very first EVER fieldtrip! So instead of leaving bright and early on Thursday for Boise, we left at noon...in the end I think it worked out better, we only had to hide from my mom for two hours instead of four-we just went straight to the church where we were having the party and got it all decorated.
Mom loved her surprise...we were able to get her to the church by involving the Executive Secretary-he called her the night before to come for an appointment with the Bishop-her and dad...so for 18 hours she tried to speculate what new calling she might get-HA! We had a friend of hers sitting in the foyer acting as if she were getting a new calling too, and had her lead mom through the gym since the Bishop wasn't there yet {wink,wink}...
Mom was so startled-she thought she was walking in on someone's setup-the lights were out and we were all sitting there, but with the background light from the hall she could tell there was something there...my kids ran right up to her and gave her a huge hug!!
It was so fun...we had a baked potato bar-many ladies from the ward cooked the potatoes for us...and then my sister and I had put together a fun questionairre about mom to get to know her better and then a video with pictures throughout the last 50 years and some facts on how things have changed since her birth, her graduation year (from HS) and today...it was so good. The last part of the movie had a very tender song (I can't remember the name of it right now) from Josh Groban and the minute the lights turned back on mom rushed to my dad and gave him a ginormous hug-it was so tender, if we weren't crying already, we were definately crying then!
We then gave mom another surprise...a cell phone for her birthday...she has officially entered the technology world and I will finally be able to call her when I desperately need tips when I'm cooking dinner and she doesn't answer he home phone ;)
I have had to make up many stories to my mom in the last month so she wouldn't be suspicious...we are enjoying our vacation in Boise and will be home tomorrow evening to attack reality and pray that we are not forking out too much for a new stove and that we will get one quickly...sandwiches get old fast, so does going out (on a budget that doesn't really allow it). It's always fun to come home, even if it rains.