The girls knew that they were going to Disney World. It was a trip with my whole family to celebrate my parent's 40th Anniversary. I know, quite the celebration, huh?! But I decided awhile ago that all the details about the trip were going to be a surprise. Most specifically - when we were actually going!
They asked a number of times in September when we were going to Disney and I said later this fall. I kept having them believe that it was still a long ways away. Unfortunately the hard part about this was that everyone knew we were going and everyone I talked to knew it was a surprise but I still was paranoid that they would say something about Disney and someone would respond with "oh, your parents told you, aren't you so excited?!" or something like that and totally give it away.
I was right and wrong to be worried.
Right because I know of at least three times people said things about "Disney" and "this weekend when you leave" right in front of them.
One of those times it was Matt! Can you imagine how paranoid I was that we wouldn't pull off the surprise if their own dad was almost giving it away?!
Wrong because as clued in and somewhat suspicious the girls usually are (especially Ella) they didn't catch on.
The funniest/worst-at-the-time was the night before we left and we were having dinner with our friends Jon and Renee. They kept throwing little hints on purpose to drive me crazy, like telling the girls, that no, they couldn't do a sleepover that night, but they promised them they wouldn't sleep at home the next night, and after Renee painted their nails she told them looked as pretty as a princess. Not so bad. But Jon followed up with "you look pretty enough to meet a princess!"
I was kind of freaking out - it seemed so obvious to me - but the girls never picked up on it. I was so relieved when they went to bed that night, knowing that we would get to surprise them in the morning.
I knew that the best decision for our girls would be to tell them as close to the actual trip as possible. We told them three hours before we left. At one point in the morning Ella said "why did you tell us so early, I want to leave NOW!"
Ahhh....momma loves being right!
Coming up - Day 1!
