Holiday Surprise!

Many of you know that I drove over from Seattle to Spokane to surprise Jay!

I was sitting on my parents couch on Christmas evening ... and it just HIT me.

I didn't want to be away from Jay anymore.

So, I packed up Cooper, and I packed up myself ... and I made the snowy drive (yes mom, slowly, safely, and cautiously) the morning after Christmas.

The drive was longer then usual due to snowy/icy conditions on the pass. And the entire 3-hour drive once over the pass was somewhere near 10 degrees (read: windshield-wiper fluid frozen while semi's (unsafely) blow past you ... spraying their sandy, muddy, slushy gunk onto your windshield - which you can't clean.).

Fun times!

I will have to say ... surprising Jay was awesome. His entire family knew about it.

Jay had NO idea.

He was totally shocked.

When I arrived at his parents house, Jay's brother Casey met me outside and let Cooper in. I entered the house but hid behind the coat-rack.

Cooper ran around the house frantically. Jay ran upstairs and stared at Cooper in utter disbelief. I wish I could have snapped a picture of his face. I considered recording it on my camera.

He looked at Cooper for a good 20 seconds and said, "That's Cooper!?!" Both a statement and a question.

And then he looked at his brothers and said, "How did he get here?"

Then he noticed me standing behind the coat rack and then I got mauled by his hugs & kisses.

Yep ... that's pretty much how it went.

Fun!

Spokane has received record amounts of snowfall for December. There is between 3-4 FEET of snow on the ground.

And it's still snowing.

I love it.

I'd like to recap the last few days with a series of terrible-quality pictures, all taken with a cell phone camera (don't judge the quality and it's user) ...

I about passed out with glee when I looked outside and saw Jay's dad using a snow blower.

Living in Seattle my entire life, I've never had the grandious fortune of learning how to use one. I think I got dressed in my snow gear in about 7 seconds.

This is me ... snow blowing the Stookey's loooong driveway (I'm so happy - I love snow blowing):
Another snow blowing action shot (Jay's brother Pat is in the background shoveling snow). Apparently Jay thought it was hilarious how much fun I thought it was. Hey ... anything is fun when you first try it! The novelty of doing work while having fun hasn't worn off yet:

And now some "action shots" from the boys ....

This is Jay's dad 'reading':

Casey, 'watching TV':

And Jay ...

Pat is the only Stookey boy that I haven't snapped a picture of yet.

He better watch out.