I cannot believe I was able to keep a secret for this long. I almost never manage to do it, but for weeks, I have been planning a surprise ambush. It very nearly fell apart yesterday. But with a little flexibility, and a lot of white lies, we pulled off a fabulous surprise.
My foster daughter drove through town on Monday, on her way to Myrtle Beach with her grandparents. I met her for lunch, and totally played it straight, even when she asked me to pose for a picture to send my younger daughter (they were BFFs in high school), to brag that she got to see me. I never hinted that two days later, both of my daughters were flying in, with the intention of immediately driving up to Myrtle Beach to reunite my little family. Nothing ever, ever, ever goes off without a hitch, especially with my older daughter who is convinced the universe conspires against her. (Time management skills would make a world of difference, but she isn't ready to accept that advice. Maybe when she's in her 30s. Or 40s. Or never.) My girls arrived to check in at the airport with less than 45 minutes to spare before takeoff. The airline frowns upon this behavior, and refused to grant a boarding pass. So a couple change fees and sheepish phone calls to mama later, I was left wondering how on earth I was going to concoct a believable tale to the foster daughter for why I wasn't leaving to see her until after seven last night, without spilling the beans. I was vague, and melodramatic without giving any actual details other than, "ugh. I'll explain when I get there." This didn't make me popular with the grandparents who don't know me super well, but I was more focused being the nervous mom who knows her only children were flying through a huge thunderstorm. Once they finally landed, and we were driving up to pull off the caper, I really got a good look at the intensity of the storm, with the most beautiful (now that they weren't in it) lightning imaginable. The rains made it difficult to drive quickly, especially in my little car that does not handle standing water on the roadways well. The later we got, the worse we felt the surprise would be, but we were totally committed to the scenario and were not about to give up this close to the finish line. Plans of an afternoon of visiting and dinner turned into meeting for drinks, which then turned into requests to go to Denny's to hang out and drink coffee. My younger child suggested, "Why don't we just kidnap her and give her back to her grandmother tomorrow?" That had never occurred to me, but once we thought about it, it was the perfect solution.
The rendezvous point was at a set of time share condominiums, and rather than going through the gate guard and trying to find the right place, we had my foster daughter meet us by the guard house. The look on her face, when she realized I was not alone in the car, was priceless. She jumped out of her grandmother's car, where she had been waiting, and ran around to throw herself into my younger daughter's arms. Her poor grandmother wasn't in on the surprise either, and she was so tired as we drove up (just past eleven), that she could barely crack a smile. She let us follow through on our kidnap idea, and after a good night's sleep, even went along with our new plan to keep her for longer, putting her on a bus headed for home tomorrow night.
This is the first time since we left New Mexico that all four of us have been able to hang out and be girls together. I am so happy that our cunning plan succeeded. To make my posting deadline, I'm going to cut it off here, but I will write at length tomorrow after I take them to some touristy sites around here, and hopefully get some good photos. But for now, I think it's time to whip out the Rock Band instruments, make a quartet of mudslides, and get the band back together. I call microphone.
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