So you can imagine how hard it was for me not to tell Mom when all of us kids (and Dad) bought Alina a plane ticket to surprise Mom for Mother's Day way back in MARCH! Good grief. It was the best surprise ever...seriously. I emailed Mom's bosses in March and arranged for her to get the days off while Ali was here, and they were amazing about it - so excited and happy about it - they thought it was a great plan!
That meant that we had about 2 months to keep this thing a secret...that was very hard!
Finally, the day came!!! We hadn't seen Ali and William for almost 8 months, and with their work schedules and Ali's school schedules, we really had no definite idea of when we would see them next (Mom especially was pretty bummed about it all). But then came the day when I drove out to the airport and picked them up!!! And we were off to Mom's office, cursing the traffic along the way, planning out every aspect of how we were going to surprise her. The plan was to have Charlotte and I go up and visit, bringing some photos we got done at Sears recently (it wasn't unusual for us to drop in to say hello), and Ali and Will would sneak in the back door and race around to the front to surprise her. In the car I was lamenting that I so badly wanted to be able to film it, but I hadn't figured out a way to do that....well duh, I could have easily given one of them my video camera, but Ali had the brilliant plan to have William film it on his phone....
Unfortunately, as they still have to work and make money and go to school....we were only able to keep them here for 6 days. Much better than nothing, though!
I was so glad that they were able to spend so much time with Charlotte - I so badly wanted her to bond with Ali, now that she was starting to get old enough to begin remembering her maybe. It took her a little bit to warm up to her completely, but after a couple hours Ali was experiencing the true, crazy, goofy Charlotte! They became BFFs.
We enjoyed many relaxing days and evenings on the deck, laughing and playing silly games, we went to the playground (because Charlotte is the centre of everything, obviously), went to the beach, and stayed up late most nights.
We did our "couch" photo - we had a plan of doing a photo with Charlotte, Alina and William whenever we saw them...this is our fifth.
Working with a slightly cranky baby...she clearly didn't want them to leave!
But alas, we had to say farewell for now *sniffles* Charlotte, Mom and I hope to be able to make it down to San Diego maybe in November or so...before Charlotte turns 2, so I don't have to pay for her plane ticket :) We also plan to skype a whole lot more...we need Charlotte to remember her crazy Aunty Alina and Uncle William!
We love you guys!!! <3
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