Saturday, April 11, 2009

April Fools...or not?







I've been known to play April Fool's jokes on the kids from time to time. Last year, I told Zachary that school was cancelled due to a snow day. He believed me but failed to look out the window since there wasn't any snow. Another year, I made a vegetable pot pie that I knew the kids would complain about. However, this time I used pudding for the middle & starbursts as the veggies. They were totally fooled! This year, Zachary told me a couple of weeks earlier that he was ready for my jokes.
We had planned a surprise birthday trip for him a few months before. We had some airline miles to use so Eddy and I decided to fly Zachary & myself (with baby Catelyn) to CA to visit my parents. When Jesse turned 10 we took him to D-land so we decided this would be a fun tradition even though we couldn't take the whole family this time. Additionally, Disneyland is giving away free admission on your birthday along with a 2fer ticket for SO. CA residents, which means he would have two free tickets to Dland & CA Adventure. He also had a pass to Legoland from his Lego membership.
So, the joke was on him. When he got home from school on April Fool's day, we had the table set up for his birthday dinner. He asked why I would go through so much trouble just to be funny. Then we gave him a couple of gifts, things wrapped up around the house so he would think it was a joke. The final gift was a trip to CA. He reacted just as I suspected: with disbelief. We were laughing so hard because he was actually getting fooled even when he thought we couldn't fool him. We had him pack that night but he didn't believe me until the next morning when it was no longer April Fool's day.
We were able to visit some friends, hang out with Ryan, Ashley & Kennedee at the beach where Ryan taught Zachary how to surf for the 1st time (Zach got up on the first try and rode the wave), watch Conference all weekend with my parents, and then headed out to Disneyland, CA Adventure and Legoland. We actually surprised him with D-land & pretended to take a drive that night but accidentally arrived in Anaheim.
Great fun & it was a birthday he will never forget!!

2 comments:

Ms. Read said...

So much fun!!

Kathy said...

We are so glad it wasn't an April Fools joke, and that we got to see you. It was wonderful to spend the day with you, and only wish you lived closer so we could do it more often. Ryan loves the computer games Zachary showed him too. Miss you already!

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