To Kristin and Sarah,

my two faithful, demanding, nagging, beautiful readers, this is dedicated to you!

I've learned my lesson, and that's the last time I put a teaser at the end of a post.

Alternate Title: Surprise Part Two

So.

Picking up where we left off...

Michael and I hit the couch around 5:30 am IN time, right after I snuck back to mom and dad's room and gave Mom a hug (dad was on a church retreat until Sunday night). The next morning, Michael and I waited for Olivia to finally roll out of bed around 10:30. We pretended to be asleep when we heard her walking down the hallway and then come to an abrupt stop, followed by twenty seconds of silence, followed by running back down the hallways, followed by running back in the living room and "waking" us up. It turns out, she walked in in her underwear (don't worry, Michael had his eyes closed!) and once she realized who was on the couch, which apparently took a good while, she sprinted to her room to put some shorts on before coming back out to this...

and this...

and the next day we (by we I me an Olivia and I) did this...

 and found nifty things like this...

and after that, we went to Curt and Jeannie's and met Bailey...

and after that we went to my Grama and Grampa's to surprise them...

Which went something like this: Olivia rang the doorbell and peaked through the window while Michael and I stood pressed against the door. As soon as the doorbell rang I heard my Grampa (who sits in a chair watching tv two steps away from the door) say, "Lana! You gonna get that?" who responded, "Bill, I'm cleaning the kitchen floor!" Soon enough Grampa was out of his chair and caught a glimpse of Olivia before opening the door and announced to Grama that Olivia was there. He opened the door to see Michael and I and stood their shocked with a precious grin on his face before wrapping me in a bear hug as I heard Grama yell, "Hi, Olivia!" from the kitchen. Moments later Grama hurried around the corner absolutely clueless before stopping dead in her tracks and proclaiming the most hilarious response I've ever heard from my sweet, mild mannered, five foot nothing grama. Eyes wide, arms crossed she said, "you little shits! I just talked to you on the phone!" And so the night begun. Later we went to my house for pizza and conversation mostly centered on Grama's reaction and wise words from my Grampa on the origins of the "S" word. According to him, it stands for Store High In Transit, an acronym used in the good old days when ships hauled manure across the Atlantic. Don't you feel better knowing that? Me too.

Moving on to surprise number three. Dad.
Dad had been on a church retreat the past four days and got home Sunday night just after reading letters that all of us had written him as a part of the retreat. Needless to say, it was an emotional weekend for him. And if you know my dad, you know that he still cries every time I leave the house and is, in general, an emotional basket-case when it comes to anything involving his girls (mom, Olivia and me). Anyways, back to the surprise. He rode home with one of his best friends, Kevin Parker, who had been updating us on how far away they were, and when they pulled in the driveway all of us were out there playing basketball. Dad was crying before he even got out of the car...

Chalk that up as another successful surprise! We ended the night with a good old fashioned game of horse, or maybe it was more like thirty games, followed by family time in the living room and fun stuff like four-person-push-ups...

The next day, Michael went to Terre Haute to see his parents and help his dad with harvest while I stayed at home and caught up with good friends and surprised one last very special lady, my dad's mom Grama Gerry.

Grama Gerry is a stubborn, no-nonsense, straight shooting woman who's all bark and absolutely no bite. She's my kind of woman. She is in her late 80's and while she's mentally sharp as a tack (minus a tiny bit of forgetfulness) she isn't very mobile, so she sits in that chair all day watching t.v. So this time I thought I'd bring a movie to watch with her even though she always insists that she "doesn't like movies." Someone tell me how the lady who watches t.v. all day won't watch a movie? I still don't know, but at least I tried. Like I said, she's stubborn. So I gave in and watched t.v. as we ate our BK value meals that I brought for lunch and she stole my french fries. She also always mutes the commercials. Why? Again, I don't know because half the time she sits there wondering what the commercial might be about. And I'm all like, "you know you could just leave the volume on!" But no. Instead we made a game of guessing what each commercial was for before the other. I creamed her. If it's starting to sound like I'm dissing on my grama, I am, but it's ok that's how our relationship is, we have an understanding. And she knows I love her!

That about covers all the Crawfordsville surprises! Next...Anderson!