A Christmas Surprise

We’re like those people that have a dead Christmas tree in the corner of their living room still. It’s too embarrassing to get rid of it now because someone might see you disposing of it 3 months after the fact. We don’t have a tree. Never got one. But, we’re still dealing with photos and videos from the holidays. I have this problem where I refuse to post out of chronological order. So, here I am in March finally dragging out our form of a dead Christmas tree.

Our 37 hours of secret travel from Bali to Cincinnati was just one day before Christmas Eve. We had booked the return trip before we left but no one knew aside from a select few. Most everyone thought we were off roaming the planet, spending Christmas surfing or something equally strange for people from Ohio. Nope. This year our mission was to surprise our entire family by coming home.

The first surprises were on our second day home. We received a request from Dusty’s sisters asking if they could stay in our condo for the night. They hadn’t seen each other in months and wanted to crash in our place after a night out in downtown Cincinnati. This was a perfect way to begin our surprises. We kept tabs on them via text messages asking whether they could find parking and did they remember the code, etc. They thought we were checking in from Indonesia, not sitting upstairs awaiting their arrival! We had to be ready when they opened our front door.

Next was surprising my mom’s side of the family on Christmas Eve. We parked away from the house, crept up around cars and knocked on the door while they were opening Christmas gifts.

On Christmas Day, we surprised Dusty’s mom while she was opening gifts. His sisters were in on it this time.

Finally, we set up the cheesiest surprise possible for my Dad by having me wrapped like a Christmas gift.

Now that you know how it went down, check out each of the surprises.Their reactions are great!

Aren’t surprises fun!?!