Visitors and surprises!

My dad and nephew Zak left today after a fun week in Arizona... we had so much fun hanging out by the pool, showing them around Arizona and pulling off a huge surprise on Monday...

Here are the background details of the surprise....

* My nephew Chris has been in the Marines for almost 2 years now (so proud of him!)

* He has been stationed in Okinawa, Japan for the last year...

* He went to Thailand a couple months ago for a short trip with the Marines
* He got an assignment in Yuma, ARIZONA and was set to arrive on Friday (the same day my nephew Zak got here)
* MAJOR detail: NO ONE in our family knew he was coming except for me and my sister (his mom) because as soon as I found out it was the same time that my dad and Zak were going to be here, I knew I could attempt (and likely pull off) a really cool surprise....

This is how it went down...

We picked up my dad from the airport on Monday, stopped for breakfast, and then started driving. I didn't tell them where we were going, so we just kept driving.... and driving... It wasn't until 2 hours into the drive that my dad said "Where are we going? I think we've seen enough of the desert, we can turn around now." Meanwhile, I'm texting Chris figuring out exactly where we were going to meet up, completely ignoring the questions that were coming from my dad and Zak. Originally, I was going to take them to Yuma and just walk around, go to this historical prison and stop for lunch at a restaurant where Chris would show up and surprise them. Instead, Chris had the day off (unexpectedly) and said to just come to the base.

When we were about 30 minutes away, my dad said "I just saw a sign for Yuma, we might as well go there since we're this far." I said "We can stop through Yuma on our way to where we're going if you want." And when I finally had everything squared away with Chris on our plan, I told the worst, most unbelieveable lie I could come up with....

Side note: Zak really wanted to cross the border to Mexico while he was here, but with all of the violence in the border towns recently, we decided right before he got here that it wasn't the best idea.

So here's the worst lie on the planet.... (I don't even know how I kept a straight face when I said this): "Ok-- since you keep bugging me about what we're doing I'll just tell you. I know that Zak wanted to go to Mexico so I looked online and found out that there's a military base in Yuma where civilians can cross the border into Mexico with the protection of the military, but you can only do it during the week on certain days during the month."

Yah.... horrible story, right? Well, my dad and Zak both fell for it. My dad said "Oh cool! Do you think there's a sign that says 'Welcome to Mexico' that we could get a picture of?" I was trying SO hard not to laugh but they both believed it so we were good to go....

We pulled up to the base and originally went to the wrong gate so we had to turn around and go one further.... As we pulled up, I saw Chris standing on the corner waiting.... Before we got there he told the guard what we were up to and told him to just point us to the parking lot/visitor's registration and he would walk over to our car. As my dad and Stefan were talking to the guard I was in the backseat waving to my nephew out of the window.... As soon as we started turning into the parking lot, my dad said "Hey, that guy looks like Christopher..............

Wait--- that IS Chris!!!!"

It was SO perfect! I LOVE pulling of surprises, and this one probably tops the list--- it was so good to see Chris and priceless to see my dad's expression and excitement.

I'm just glad my dad didn't say something to the guard like "We have reservations to be escorted to Mexico today, where should we park?"