Thursday, July 17, 2014

Project: Daddy in a Box

200/365

I'm still taking a while getting all caught up on blogs.  I'm so far behind.  But at least we have really good reasons.  A big one happened last week!  My brother in law finally came home.  Now the last time he returned from being deployed, Lisa had a whole great thing set up at the airport, and there were people, and I cried, and still do when I watch that video.  This time she wanted to do something different.

My sister had a special idea, she called it Project: Daddy in a Box.  She wanted me to have a box show up on the doorstep with James inside.  I had a vision of it being giftwrapped, but the refrigerator box I found was just too big for that.  I did buy paper, in an effort to do that, but my helper and I found out it didn't work.


While I was messing with my roll of wrapping paper, trying to tape it down, and realizing I only had enough for 1 1/3 sides of my box.  Someone stole my scissors.  So I had to snap his picture before taking them back.  At least he was holding them by the dangerous end.  

I picked up the boys from Art Camp, and we went to lunch at the airport.  They did a great job, eating, and behaving while we waited for Uncle James to arrive.  Then we drove to Aunt Lisa's apartment.  We had planned on parking, and hiding behind bushes and things, but when we texted Li to let her know we were here, she said, Meet me by the trash can!  So she came out with some trash.  Of course, the girls would never had expected that.  


After they got a quick welcome in, I put James in the box.  And went to bang on the door.   
Each of my boys had a job.  Chris's job was to Say Nothing, and hide behind a bush.  Sam's job was to Say Nothing and keep Jacob quiet.  i told them if they did their jobs, then I would take them for ice cream afterwards.  I was reaching and there was a Dairy Queen right around the corner Of course, as soon as I got out of sight, Jacob lost his mind, so we decided to leave him in the car with the car on, with Sam.   But both my boys were so determined to do their jobs.  



So when Annie and Charlie came out, and saw Chris, he ran.  
He got so upset he started to cry.  He knew he wasn't supposed to say 1 word until he saw Uncle James done hugging Annie and Charlie.  That was the limit.  And he didn't.  Instead, when his cover was blown, rather than say a word, he ran.  And the girls went after him  instead of going for the box.  


So we had to Redirect, and get the girls focused on the box.  When Annie asked why we were there, I said, Go Look at the Box!   So they did.  




Then I got the video going again, but there's a 2 second delay...and unfortunately, in my opinion, the video lost the most important 2 seconds.  But Christopher did manage to capture a couple photos while I was videotaping.  He's actually got a great photographic eye, but can be easily distracted.  


This was one Christopher took.  
I love how purely happy Annie was to have her Daddy home. 


The girls have their Daddychair back! 



Welcome Home! 


And the entire West family is back together again. 

Well, even though Chris and I gave away our positions (we could never be in the army), I told him I'd still take him for ice cream.  He did his job, and so did I, those girls are just Too Darn Smart!  

Well, when word got out we were going for ice cream, everybody wanted to go.  
So we all did.  :)


Aww, the mooshies and the squooshies!


We took over the Dairy Queen.  
The kids had some fun eating ice cream.  Turns out Jake likes chocolate...just like Ma. 


Like it Orlando?  It's Autumn Sunrise.  
I promised her if she let me take this picture of her being silly, I'd give it this caption.
I loved her hair with the flower in it, very Billie Holiday or something.   



The rest of them thinking, what are we gonna do with that girl?   I know, I've been around her silliness for years, but now you've got plenty of time together again to figure it out.

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