Stowaway

About a week or two ago, Kevin and I decided to go out on a "date". We planned to go out to eat at Olive Garden. We took Derek's new jeep because the top was down and it was a nice evening. We got halfway down the street when all of a sudden Riley casually pops up from behind the jeep and says, "Hi!" It scared us to death! After the initial shock, we laughed hysterically. Apparently, he somehow wedged himself between the back seat and the back door of the jeep (where the spare tire usually is on the back of jeeps). He settled himself comfortably into the back seat- thoroughly proud of himself. He said later that he would have stayed hidden longer, but he was getting really uncomfortable. He was back there forever waiting for us to leave. We thought it was pretty funny so we kept him with us and took him to dinner. I think he enjoyed going out to eat with just us--no siblings around. Riley's antics always take us by surprise. One thing's for sure---there wasn't a trip to "inspiration point" that night! Ha!

Surprise

First of all.....Thanks Nancy for the blog redesign! It is very festive!

This past weekend was Derek's 16th birthday. I talked to one of his friends (Tyler) about having a surprise party for him. We tried to figure out when to do it, but with football games and an EFY all day on Saturday, we couldn't find a good time. On Friday, Derek and some of his friends came home for lunch. One of them mentioned to Kevin, "We are on at 6:30 tomorrow, right?" Huh? Apparently, Tyler went ahead and organized a party for Saturday night. We were so glad that one of the boys mentioned it, otherwise we would have never known. We had no idea who was coming!! We found out about an hour beforehand that there would be about 10 kids. So on Saturday at about 6:30 a group of girls from the ward showed up. Great. His other friends came soon after. We waited for almost an hour for Tyler to show up with Derek. Kevin disconnected the garage door so that Derek had to come through the front door. When Derek came in, I had to fight my smile and nonchalantly say hello. Derek rounded the corner to our kitchen and was greeted with a shout of surprise. Derek said his heart skipped a beat, but he didn't appear phased at all. His response was, "You're two days late". (What??!!) Everyone stayed and goofed around till about 11:30. We had a BBQ (none of which the girls ate), a fire pit, and some games. For some odd reason, Kevin got Twister out. Whatever. The girls were horribly immature anyway. This was the first surprise party we have ever done and I thought it was a lot of fun. I'm still not quite sure what Derek thought about it, but I don't think it will be something he will forget.