a sweet surprise...

as my mom says, it's a "family challenge" to surprise me. i do not like surprises if i know they are coming and i almost always know because people act weird when they are lying. i usually know most gifts my family gives me. they act like it is so annoying, but i think they don't try very hard to keep secrets from me. this time it all started with tom and kelly coming back for the weekend for a little more research. i told adam that we should have the figgins over too since we had to cancel on them recently due to crappy residency hours...then i thought...a picnic to get adam some sunshine. i expected adam to be excited, but instead with a suspicious look said that "we should stay home." ok party pooper. then kelly and adam kept giggling about something in the kitchen and adam kept getting random phone calls that he denied.

 

finally, my parents showed up. surprise! they came to visit for the weekend too and i was so excited to show them our house for the first time and for them to meet pax. i was also excited for the fresh peaches and plums that suddenly covered my kitchen counters. yum! my mom loves snuggling graham.
 

20 minutes later the doorbell rang. adam said "oh ellen, the stroller. will you get it? it's a lady with a stroller who wants some food. you should talk to her since it is a woman." ok, a woman asking for food is not altogether unusual in our neighborhood, but why did you start off talking about a stroller? guess who was really there? sweet charlotte! did i mention that when i showed my parent the kids room, she said: :"oh, charlotte can sleep there." i thought, "when? at thanksgiving?" i was really surprised this time. wasn't it so clever for them to split the surprise in two?

 

charlotte moved from our city to new york city to intern with storycorps. i'm super proud of her, but i LOVED having her live closeby and we all really miss her.

we had a blissful 18 hours or so together...eating dinner, walking to church together, sitting and catching up.

 

 

char stayed with us a few more days since her boyfriend lives down the street from us. we even caught a long run together! she is one of my favorite people to run with since we easily fall into the same rhythm. and it is always a treat to run without the jogging stroller...did i tell you that i'm running a 10k in september and hopefully a half-marathon in november...so most of our days begin like this:

my jogger can convert from strolling wheels that swivel and keep it pretty compact
 

to sturdy, three-wheeled jogger.




it can also hook up to a bike as a trailer, be used cross-country skiing, or hiking. we don't do any of these activities yet, but when graham turns one, we might start biking as a family.

anyway, thanks family for the surprise! it was really great to see charbar and to be together a bit. we missed abe and bethany though!