Details of Mom's Birthday Surprise

Friday:

After getting packed up in the morning, Jordan and I squeezed in a little movie date before heading up to Minnesota. :) We went to see "The Dark Knight." It was pretty good, though I did not like the Joker. It was definitely a scarier movie than I was anticipating. And I was really upset that certain characters died that I thought were protected by the unspoken law of main-characters-never-die! I hate when movies violate that law!

Anyway, we made it to Mom's house by 7pm and enjoyed some time with my unsuspecting mother and my fellow-conspirator-siblings. Jess and I made some apple crisp while Jordan sharpened knives, which Jess and I promptly used to slice our thumbs in our apple-peeling endeavor. :P A little later, we girls all took Mom on a "girl-date" to Starbucks...which was really an unashamed distraction/cover-up to give Jason and Jordan time to load up our old boating stuff (skis, lifejackets, the torpedo, etc.) in preparation for Saturday.

When we got home, we got all the picnic food together and ready to go the next day (we still had Mom convinced we were going on a picnic at a lake in Fairmont on Saturday, so we had to keep up the facade).

I think we let Mom have a little too much sugar at Starbucks, because we had the hardest time convincing her to go to bed that night! It was after midnight before I finally got her to her bedroom, but I'm pretty sure she stayed up like a bad girl until Doug made it in around 2am!

Saturday:
I think Mom thought we were all going a little coo-coo when she woke up and found us all awake and getting ready to go at 6:30am! Her suspicions were definitely aroused that something was up, but she could never guess what we had planned for her! :) We had a really hard time convincing her that she would want to wear a swimsuit. Haha! I never expected it, but that was probably the biggest obstacle we had to overcome in carrying out our great plan! We kept telling her that we were all going to be playing in the water with Kaden and that she would want to be able to do that as well. She finally gave in...for Kaden...and we were able to get on the road around 8.

I already posted the video of the progression of Mom's surprise, so I'll just skip past all that. Our boat had a 10-person max, but I don't think it would have been a good idea to take more than 8! It really dragged through the water with all of us in there, but we soon got the hang of where to distribute the weight so the boat could get enough oomph to get people out of the water for skiing and such! ;) It was so great to be back out on the lake with the wind and the waves and the splashing!!! I just ache for that sometimes!!

First, we rode the boat across the lake a little ways. Kaden thought it was so fun! Whenever the boat would stop, he would just look around and say, "Ooohhhh!" Haha! It was so cute! :) He didn't seem to mind the big bounces from all the waves at all! Jason skied, Doug skied, Julie skied, Jessica skied, Jordan attempted to ski, then we took a break for some swimming. I think that was Kaden's favorite part! JaJu had a cute floatie thing for Kaden to sit in, and he was so smiley and happy out there! He kicked his legs the whole time! It was hilarious! He kicked them so hard!!! He'll be the next Michael Phelps, I'm telling you! ;)

While we were swimming, Jason was inflating the torpedo. Jessica, Jordan, and I decided to take the first ride on it. However, we could hardly stay on the torpedo with three of us on it! We capsized over and over again! Jess ended up waiting for a later ride. Jordan and I took a few rides on the torpedo. I could not believe how the torpedo threw me around! I could barely hold on! Jason was not a very kind boat driver, either. :P

Jason and Jess took a ride on the torpedo and so did Jason and Julia. A little later, Doug rented a wake board and showed us all his skills on that! Julie, Jordan, Jessica, and Jason also gave it a try, but the water was really choppy and the boat was dragging a little too much to make for very good conditions. So we went back to the marina and this time rented a tube. I don't know why, but I let Jordan convince me to ride with him on the tube!! Once again, I found myself flying around the lake, and my body getting banged around by the waves! Yeah, I definitely felt that on Sunday...and Monday...and Tuesday...! Julie and Jess took a ride on the tube, and so did Jason and Julia, and then Doug. Jordan drove the boat while Doug was riding the tube, and really gave him a beating! Poor guy ended up biting his tongue really badly at the end of the ride featured in the video below!

We went out to eat at Perkins for supper. We were all starving! At home, Mom did some preparations for Sunday's meal, and we made pumpkin pies together. :) Then, I think we were all in bed by 11...definitely not something my family does often!

Sunday:
We all woke up with sore muscles and sunburned skin. :P It was good to be back at Calvary Baptist in Granada for church. I miss my church family back there so much! After church, we came home to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal, complete with turkey and pumpkin pie! :) Yummy, yummy!!! :D

Below, I've posted a couple videos and a slide show of pictures from our exciting weekend. What great memories we made!!!



This video is 25 seconds long:

Doug taking a beating on the tube

This video is 37 seconds long:

Mom skiing