SURPRISE! WE'RE HOME!
2nd night in Canada - at the Canucks game! O' Canada!!
The secrets out… Luke and I are officially back on Canadian soil. We snuck our way back to this beautiful (but cold!) country in early March and tried hard to keep our arrival a secret for as long as we could. If you recall, we gave a large variety of approximate dates of when we intended to fly home, as well as led a lot of people to believe that we were going to be in Australia for quite a few months. Truth be told, we only spent a week and a half there! Since we’ve been home, we’ve been trucking around British Columbia surprising as many people as we can. Being an event planner, I have spent many nights dreaming up elaborate situations in which we could surprise a variety of people. Also being an event planner, I came to the realization that things, especially surprises, generally cannot be predicted! Therefore we had a lot of last minute planning and adjusting to make the surprises work. Boy was it fun!!
Surprising our Victoria family all thanks to Luke's Mom's visit to the island!
When we flew into Canada, a very small select few people knew we were on our way. It felt a bit odd flying through the world with the majority of people we love having no idea we were headed home. It was also very challenging to avoid those happy facebook status updates and “checking-in” to the variety of airports we were in. But we stayed strong with the beautiful thought of watching our friends and family’s faces when we surprised them. And we were not disappointed!
Our first successful surprise, Luke's sister Tingy!!
The most epic fail of a surprise was one of our firsts, my Dad. He was playing hockey in Delta near the Nicholls house, so we got picked up from the airport and spent our afternoon lounging at their place. Marilyn messaged Dad and asked him to stop by her place after hockey to quickly grab something she had for him (the something being me!!). We continued to lounge ( barely functioning as we had just travelled for 24 hours and had approximately 2 hours of sleep) and waited to hear from Pops when he was done his hockey. About 20 minutes after we thought he should have responded or stopped by, Marilyn called him asking where he was and if he was coming by. Turns out that was the day he carpools with a few other guys to hockey and they were already on their way home, with no option of turning around. Marilyn tried and tried to convince him that it was worth his effort in turning around and coming back, but with no luck. Finally, I jumped on the phone and said, “Hi Daddy… I’m home” … Pops was very confused! Then once the reality set in, very happy! It ended up that Jenn was off work soon and able to swing by to pick us up and take us back to Poppas… and everything turned out okay! (just not the way we had planned, haha).
My furry little nephew... Looove that face!
The most epically wonderful surprise we had was with our dear friend Kate. Kate is actually the friend responsible for Luke and I meeting years ago, and has been a dear friend of mine for about ten years now. I had a general idea of Kate’s work schedule, although knew nothing about her social schedule. Since we had been friends for so long, I knew exactly where she lived and figured that if she wasn’t home, Luke and I could just go upstairs and hang out with her family. So as we pulled up outside her house (a few houses down of course.. just in-case she looked outside) we were muttering to ourselves, “please be home, please be home, please be home”. We knew Kate’s reaction would be priceless, so we made sure to have Luke’s camera ready and on video when as we walked up to and knocked on her door. Our hearts were just pounding as we saw a shadow approaching through her glass doorway. She opened the door and simply stared out at us for what felt like minutes, but was probably about 15 seconds. We could see the wheels turning as she sorted out in her head why these two travellers were standing in front of her... and then.. the excitement exploded! She bounced and squealing and screamed and laughed and hugged. It was magical! <3
Kate and I reunited <3
We have adjusted back to driving on the "right" side of the road, although we both have many accidental windshield wiper moments. We had our timmies coffee in the airport as soon as we arrived! Luke has now been up to 100 Mile House to surprise his family, and I have been to Penticton to catch up with my bestie. Tonight was the last surprise planned, with a trip to Delta to have dinner with a few of my wonderful highschool girlfriends! It has been a whirlwind of surprises and scheduling, and I am so happy we made the decision to come back this way.
Beautiful Vancouver!
Ferry fun with Olivia, Luke's neice
Luke and Flash, his bearded dragon
on the ferry to our beautiful island city of Victoria!!! Feels soooo great to be back!
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