Party time in Syracuse!!! Part 2--the big surprise!

Well, we all assembled and hid out in the house when Diana called us to warn they were about back. You would have never known we had around 40 people hiding out quietly! Diana got Mom to put on her party hat and when she walked in and saw all of us, it was priceless! I got a short video clip of her big moment, and when I get a chance to upload it, I'll add it here. But in the meantime, here's a photo:

And here are a few pics of the party:

Party time in Syracuse!!!

July 4th weekend saw the plans that my sisters and I had made all come to fruition. We'd decided to throw Mom a surprise late birthday party and invite her siblings, our cousins and friends of hers. The beauty of the plan was that Mom and Ed had just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and she knew we were in town, so if she suspected we were up to anything, she'd guess anniversary, not her birthday! Diana was assigned distraction duty to get them out of the house for the morning hours we needed to get the house ready for guests. Here are some pictures of us getting ready:

Fun in DC (me playing catchup on blogging..again!!

Well, even though it was a month ago, before we made our trip up to Syracuse to throw my mom a surprise late birthday party, I made a solo side trip up to DC to see Sara and Ella. Andrew was coming home from NYC where he's been taking graduate classes, so I wasn't sure if I'd get to see him or not. Lucky for me, he got back late that Saturday night, so I did get to see him!

Anyway, since I got up to Sara's early enough in the morning, I was able to accompany Sara and Ella to Ella's sign language class. I was fascinated by how well Ella is able to communicate using signs, even though she does not have hearing loss, but what a smart cookie she is!

In that afternoon, I also had the chance to hang out with my best childhood friend, Mikko. He and I have known each other since the age of 8, and I hadn't seen him in 6 years, so I was really excited to see him! The weather was a sunny, hot day, and it was beautiful!! We spent a few hours together hanging out and it was like when we were kids, hanging out, talking, being goofy and it was so fun! I am going to have to make more side trips up there...I had such a great time! Mikko also helped me with some finnish pronunciation, since I have a close online friend who lives in Finland and has been teaching me some phrases.

Sara, Ella and I ate dinner in Old Town Alexandria after Mikko left, and we ate at a tapas place. Ella had fun playing with the wine menu while we looked at the food ones.

The next day, Sara, Andrew, Ella and I went to the National Zoo. It was nice in the morning and the animaals were active. Ella loved the cows and we got to see the pandas rolling around and climbing up and down the trees. Very fun! they even had a pizza themed kiddie play ares.