Breaking the News

So the time had arrived to tell my parents about the surprise trip. It wasn't a completely out of the blue surprise to my father, because when I was in for my grandmother's funeral he had talked about mom's birthday and asked if we would be able to come in for it, because if we couldn't he was going to try to take some time off and take her on a weekend trip to the beach or Niagara Falls.

At this point, my husband and I obviously hadn't had time to talk about if we should try to do the trip or not, my grandmother had just passed away. I told my dad to see how much time he could get off and to call me in a week though.

When he called, I still didn't want to totally blow the surprise for him, so I talked like I was going to book us a trip to Myrtle Beach. That bought me a little bit more time, and he at least knew we were taking a trip, and knew most of the dates so he could put in for the vacation time.

In just a few days, we were ready to tell my parents about the trip. On a Friday evening, after work we prepared to call them. I called them on speaker phone and we wanted to talk to both of them at once, and my dad wasn't home!!! What an awkward situation. There my husband and I are on the phone with my mom, and we have nothing to say haha. I told her that we would give them a call back in a little bit when dad was home, and my husband blurted out... "and don't get excited, we're not pregnant!"

My mom, trying to lighten the awkwardness said "Oh don't worry, that never crossed my mind. I thought you were going to tell me you were taking me on an Alaskan Cruise!"

*crickets chirping*

I laughed and told her to keep dreaming. She said she'd let us know when my dad was home.

So then, for the next 2 hours, I sat there and obsessing over whether my mom had figured out what we were doing and was just trying to be funny and throw a monkey wrench into our plans, or if it was just a totally random comment, or if she really did want to go on an Alaskan cruise. I started pricing Alaskan cruises.

A bit later my parents called. First I cleared the air about the Alaska comment. I asked her if she WANTED to do that, and she laughed and said no, that she had just been watching tv when we called and they were talking about Alaskan cruises and so it was the first non baby thing that came to mind.

With that out of the way, we announced that for her 60th birthday (and also for dad's), we wanted to take them on vacation, and then I told her to check her e-mail and I sent her this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MudYil5Ryvw

My mom started crying so hard she couldn't talk. She couldn't believe it. Apparently she had been looking at the Atlantis for years, but because my dad is retiring in 3 years and they have aggressive savings goals right now, she felt she couldn't justify it.

She had the most adorable excited quiver in her voice... after all she's done for me, making my mother this happy is priceless.

We also told them about the other trip options, but from the first moment, she and my dad both wanted to do the Atlantis trip. So that's what we're doing!

The night we told them about the trip, it was supposed to be a 5 night trip. In my next post I'll talk about how it went from a 5 to 7 night trip, and how we wound up with 3 times the space in our accommodations for nearly the same price!