Family Matters: Family!

Oh, I just LOVE surprises!! And I got to be part of a really big one in January. My brother, Arthur, who moved to Canada last June, emailed me just before Christmas to tell me he had to come back to NZ for 6 weeks for work. He decided not to tell anyone except me so I made elaborate plans to get to Auckland Airport and pick him up. I told everyone that I had to pick up a penpal. (Well, I DO write to him-occasionally!)I left my younger two girls with their aunty and uncle in Pirongia and Caitlin and I left at 4am to drive to the airport to collect my "penpal"!! :) It was awesome to see him again and Caitlin got a HUGE surprise-well worth the early start to her day.

We then drove back to Pirongia and snuck Uncle Arthur into the house. Olivia and Briar were awake so we called them downstairs and they were happily surprised to see my 'penpal'!!
We actually had to get our younger brother out of bed (it was THAT early still!) but I managed to do it. Needless to say he was pretty speechless. So cool to see everyone so surprised!

After a couple of hours the girls and I drove to Taumarunui where Mum & Dad live. All the way down we were making plans on how to surprise them-it was so much fun trying to come up with a plan. Finally we decided to drop Arthur at the gate and he would knock on the front door while we were talking to Mum & Dad.

Hmmm, what is that saying...even the best laid plans...?? Yep, you guessed it...there was no one home!!! What??!! It was so funny...but luckily Dad was not far away so we got him in the house and sat down, then Arthur just walked in! I've never seen my Dad speechless before!!! Classic!

They got half an hour or so to catch up then Mum arrived home from town. Arthur was just sitting comfortably in the living room and in walked Mum. First of all she didn't see him as she had seen our car and was expecting to se the girls and I, which she did. She was so busy saying hello to us all that it took her quite a few minutes to notice Arthur sitting there! Her reaction was priceless-we all got a good laugh, thanks Mum :)

I absolutely enjoyed bringing such a fantastic surprise to so many people and hope they forgave me for keeping such a big secret. You have NO IDEA how many times I nearly let it slip!!

Here are some photos of our family together again...