We lied. We are liars. For the past couple weeks we’ve been living a falsehood. I guess we are falsehoodlums. Not a big lie. Just a lie big enough to fool Danine’s parents. We flew back to Virginia yesterday as a Christmas-slash-New Years’ surprise for Danine’s parents. It was made possible by Danine’s brother Chris and his wife Caren. We waited to tell Elise until she had spoken with everyone on Christmas day. She was beside herself, saying through joyful tears, “Daddy, why aren’t you crying?” Hey, I’m excited too!
We got up at 3:30 a.m. (yes, that’s correct) and drove to Corpus Christi airport and took a small plane up to Houston. Then we hopped onto a smaller plane to Dulles. While bleary eyed, all three of us were cheerful and had a smooth trip. As we descended through the clouds and could see the vast stretches of tract housing that make up western Fairfax county, Elise shouted, “Look! You can see Virginia!” Ah, Virginia.
Pat (Danine’s sister Lyn’s husband, got that?), Conor and Taylor (Lyn’s twins) met us. We went to Lyn’s and Pat’s house where we shocked — no dumbfounded — Danine’s mother. Her dad came over a short time later and he too was amazed. The miracle here is that the surprise remained so after several near-giveaways.
It’s fun to be home! It’s great to be with family! It’s great to take hot showers with water pressure in a clean bathroom. We often have one or two of those features, but rarely all three at once. We’ll be here spending time with family until Jan. 2. Then we leave home to go home (that’s confusing).
For those of you who are appalled by our lying or our lack of pictures, here is an extra bonus paragraph just for you!
Elise is now an exhibit.
I forgot to mention that we went to the Texas Aquarium in Corpus Christi the other day. It’s a modest sized aquarium (we’re experienced aquarium-goers now) with three dolphins that were cool to see up close. Even cooler up close was the tanker rolling into port. It was bigger than the USS Lexington, an older generation aircraft carrier nearby that provided a helpful scale.
Is this tugboat pushing or getting pushed?
June 10, 2008 at 5:22 am
[...] sugar and flour goodness while we chatted. We haven’t seen my parents since our trip home at New Years, so there was plenty to discuss. Eventually, Elise convinced Honey (what everyone calls my mom) to [...]