Surprise!

I can't believe I made it!  I am notoriously bad at keeping secrets from Jason, but I did it.  With a lot of help from family and friends, I successfully surprised Jason with a visit from Travis Thursday night.  To go back to the beginning...

For the past three years Jason and I have talked about putting up Christmas lights, but we didn't know how to maintain Jason's standard on our house with 40 foot tall peaks.  Last year we hemmed and hawed and eventually decided not to do it, but I got the idea to take advantage of Travis' professional light hanging abilities and give Jason a surprise weekend with his little brother. 

My plan was to talk to Travis about it over the summer, but with my job uncertainty I couldn't commit to the cost of the plane ticket or the materials, so I waited.  Once my job was secure though, I emailed Travis with an offer he couldn't refuse:

Subject: Can I interest you in an all expenses paid trip to Charleston?????

Hi, Travis! I have an opportunity for you. If you are free any of the following weekends, I would like to treat you to an all expenses paid trip to the Charleston metropolitan area (Summerville, to be exact). Your weekend will include air fare, fine dining, and a stay at a waterside resort in a balcony room overlooking a quaint old-style Charleston neighborhood. In addition to all that, you'll be entertained by the cutest baby East of the Mississippi, his adorable dog and their parents. Interested? But wait, there's more! If you are able to stay for 3 nights, we will throw in a free trip on a 25 foot center console with a private fishing guide (weather permitting)! All of this and much more can be yours...if you'd be interested in helping Jason hang Christmas lights...

Luckily, Travis fell for my extremely persuasive marketing technique and agreed.  Soon after the plan was set in motion, I decided that I really wanted to try to pull it off without lying to Jason.  We have an agreement that lies in relation to Christmas/Birthday presents are permitted, but lately I've been feeling like I tell too many "little white lies" -- the kind designed to make people feel better, ease a situation, or just fill a break in conversation -- so I was determined to do without.  Not easy...but not impossible with a little creativity. (Though my mother reminded me there is little difference between lies and deception, I prefer to look at is purposeful vagueness...)

In order for the plan to succeed I needed to:

1. Make a large charge on our credit card from "Creative Displays"
2. Convince Jason not to make any other plans for this weekend
3. Arrange for Jason to take Friday off work
4. Get Jason to the airport Thursday night to pick up Travis
5. Keep my big mouth closed

Obviously, number 5 was the hardest, but here is how the rest worked out:

1. Reminded Jason that my corporate card was "broken".  Then told him that there would be a large charge from a "fixture company" on our personal card, but not to worry about it -- I would be doing expense reports in the next week or so. All true.  (Apparently my corporate card had never been turned back on after maternity leave -- oops!)  Then hid all of the boxes in the enormous trunk of the Impala.
2. Suggested to Jason that it had been way too long since he'd been fishing and that we should leave this weekend wide open to ensure that he could go.  (He and Travis are picking up the boat right now to go fish the jetties.)
3. Told Jason that I had a "wiring specialist" flying in from Kansas City for a project in Summerville on Friday that required my consultative support.  Then told him that Donna had doctors appointments in Columbia this week --they happened to be on Wednesday, but I left that part out.  Finally, asked him if he could get the day off and be home.
4. Emailed Jason Thursday morning and told him that I had offered to pick up the "wiring specialist" from the airport after reminding him of the cutbacks in travel spending since my company's merger.  Then asked him to go with me, since the specialist was arriving at 10:00 at night and I would be more comfortable if I weren't picking him up alone.  When it was time to leave, I told Jason that the Impala was completely out of gas (true!), so we'd need to take the truck, thus avoiding unauthorized use of the company car.  Finally, when asked if I knew what the guy looked like, I suggested that Jason keep an eye out for a someone who looked like he was from Kansas City.  I told him that if that didn't work, the guy would recognize us since I was the only redhead standing around.
5. Told my mom, my brother, Jason's whole family and most of the neighbors about the surprise -- to keep from popping -- and regularly reminded myself that any false comment would ruin everything.

So, believe it or not, it worked!  Jason was completely confused when Travis walked through security and thrilled to here that Travis was here to go fishing.  I'm not sure he was quite as excited about spending an entire day of Travis' visit hanging Christmas lights, but he definitely loved the idea of a weekend with one of his brothers. 

Plus, now that they are done and no one has to go back up that 40 foot ladder until January (next year we're renting a cherry picker), he is thrilled with the lights, but based on the number of neighbors that stopped and commented, most of the men in the neighborhood are not thrilled though -- apparently my surprise has tweaked the interest of quite a few of their wives.  Oh well!

While I would love to post pictures of the lights, all self-respecting Kansas Citians know that the official lighting ceremony will not be until Thanksgiving night...but I assure you that they look incredible and we never could have done it without Travis.  What better way to kick of Charlie's first Christmas season than to light up our house like the Star of the East! (Speaking which, I'm considering adding a large star as a chimney topper next year -- with the cherry picker it should be easy, right?)

Supervising

Whoa!