Kacin turned 10 in December. We made sure we kept the element of surprise for his trip. Kacin only knew that his 10 year old trip would happen at some point while he was 10.
It just so happened that my mom was coming up to see Kacin's play and Eric looked at his work schedule to find the best time he could get away and the two overlapped a bit. Which ended up adding to the fun of his surprise.
Kacin and Eric were to fly out on a Thursday night. We told Kacin all along that Grandma would be leaving Thursday night. We had this great vision of driving my mom to the airport and when we got there sending Kacin off instead. He would never have suspected it was time for his trip. It would've been a brilliant surprise.
We adjusted the plan a little because, in reality, making my mom drive an hour to the airport just for a grand surprise, that I would't even get to see, wasn't worth it. And it didn't make sense for us to all load up in the car and to keep everyone up way past bedtime either. We settled on a big surprise at home.
Kacin was thoroughly convinced that grandma was leaving that night, even though it was his suitcase packed and waiting in the back of the truck. During dinner, Grammie made comments about how sad she was to leave and that she wished she didn't have to go yet, and should she transfer her ticket to someone else? Jokingly, Kacin offered to take her ticket and go to AZ. Ha! We tried to convince him to ride with Eric to "take Grandma to the airport", but he insisted on going to his gymnastics class that night--he did not want to miss it. He got ready to go to his class. We told him that Grammie and Eric would drop him off at gymnastics on the way to the airport and that I would come later to pick him up. He had no reason to suspect anything different.
He was waiting in the car getting anxious to go because he didn't want to miss his class. My mom was outside saying goodbye to everyone. She started making comments about not feeling well and how she didn't think she could go anymore. Kacin sat there confused as we all played that up, telling her she shouldn't fly and there had to be a way to transfer the ticket or something. Eric pretended to look on his phone at the airlines policy (he was really recording Kacin's reaction). He announced that it said the ticket could be transferred if the person who was taking it WAS 10 and going on his 10 year old trip. It took him a second to register what was actually going on, but then he broke out in the biggest grin. His eyes were shining with excitement as we each gave him and Eric a quick hug goodbye and sent them on their way on their own to the airport.
From what I gathered about this trip, it was pretty awesome. I made Eric promise me pictures and he obliged. They spent Friday at Lego Land. On saturday, they squeezed in shopping at sports authority, the Mormon Battalion center, and a tour of Petco Field before flying back home. Kacin was most excited about touring the baseball field. He loved, loved that. I'm so glad these two had a some quality time together.
Kacin told me that he was going to give a thumbs up in every picture. Which he did. On every single posed picture. Well, with one exception.
Here is the exception. All good things must come to an end. As they were leaving all that fun stuff, instead of a thumbs up, he gave a thumbs down. He sure loved his time with his dad.
Post a Comment