Nicole is Back!

I had a birthday earlier this month. In the weeks leading up to it, I'd been getting these wonderful and annoying emails from Bath and Body Works...if you know me, you know I have a deep affection for candles... I sent Nicole a screenshot of my pretend order and captioned it with "That moment when I wanna buy stuff online but you no come and visit." She replied and said they wanted to visit for Thanksgiving so if I could wait that long, then go ahead and get them! She actually did convince me...I mean, I knew I'd see her eventually in life and even though it might not have still been fall, pumpkin spice is pumpkin spice! That scent is good anytime. 

I bought the candles with a sort of black mail in mind for the future. "You have to come visit. You have my candles." 

A couple weeks passed and I reeeally started wishing my sister would surprise me on my birthday, but I knew it wasn't going to happen. About a week before my birthday, we were working in the kitchen and I told my mom, "If Nicole is coming, just lie to me! I don't want to know." She just looked at me very seriously and shook her head. I took that as, "You are already getting your hopes up and you're going to be severely disappointed. Bummer for you." 

After that exchange, I - in a completely uncharacteristic show of mental discipline and surrender - put it out of my head. The truth is, if I see you even BLINK off-beat, I hear alarm bells going off. My family regularly hears, "YOU LOOK GUILTY! What are you HIDING!?" As much as I adore being surprised, I am the worst for it because as soon as I get a hint of anything weird going on, I'm on it like a mix between a pit bull and a hound dog. LOL. 

Really and truly, I can't even blame it on my self-control or strong will. Other things started happening that required too much mental aerobics and I forgot about my sister, my birthday, any possible surprises. 

Anyways, THE POINT IS: This surprise took me one hundred million billion percent off-guard. 

My mom called me late Tuesday night and said my grandpa and grandma were there. "Grandpa wants to talk to you." Of course that was a lightning bolt that hit hard. My grandpa does not like driving to our side of town and whenever he has to do it, he makes sure everyone knows what a sacrifice it is...HA! To know he'd made the drive, and didn't even bother to call and chat about whatever issue there was...man oh man. I mean, he couldn't even come to MY HOUSE!!! He had to have my parents there!!!!!!!! *panic*

Mom told me to wait for Dad to come and get me since it was very late and pitch black outside. 

I waited for approximately 30 seconds...then slipped some shoes out and went running out the door. If Grandpa wanted to talk to me, there was no time to sit around. Might as well get this business taken care of ASAP. 

When I left my house, I called my dad to let him know I was on my way and to have him on the line in case of a kidnapping, haha. I got half-way down the street and saw him coming towards me. As he got closer, I could see a skirt kind of flapping in the wind behind him. I thought, "Why is Mom playing around at such a serious time as this??!" Really, I was feeling annoyed that she could joke at this moment. 

They were about twenty feet away when all of a sudden, Nicole jumps out from behind my dad with her arms flung all out and yelling, "SURPRISE!!!!!" 

She was recording it all. It went like this: 

Nicole: "SURPRISE!!!!!" 

Me: "WHAAAAAAAAT?!?!?!" 

...

Me: Sob, sob, sob, sob....

Nicole: "...are you happy?? Or SAD??!"

That really irked me at the time - I was thinking "DUHHHHH I'm happy...!! Just let me cry in peace!" 

She thought I was crying because I was scared of Grandpa and the talk we were going to have - HAHAHAHA!! 

That thought flew out of my mind though when I saw her though. Six months of missing her came pouring out until I was forced to get control because I felt like my collar bone was about to break.

 Come to find out, only Mom and Grandma knew about the surprise. Before surprising me, she went to my parent's house. Austin was at the dining room table reading a book. He says when he heard the doorbell he thought that one of our young men that backslid had gotten in a motorcycle accident and his parents were there to ask us to go pray for him. 

That just cracked me up! Life as a PK!! 

Dad slid the window open to see who was outside and had the shock of his life - 

Nicole standing in the street below!

 We all went back to my parent's house and visited until even later. We were so happy to have Nicole back with us!

Yes, the guys were excited too!

Rusty slept through it all. "I don't even know that girl." :)

And yes....

Nicole brought me my beloved fall candles :) 

Later on, she told me she'd already bought her ticket and was desperately trying to convince me to get them without being too obvious. 

 Augh! It was the best surprise ever. 

She stayed for a week and we packed our days full of fun. I'll be sharing about it all next time! 

~Bethany~