Surprise!!!

This past Friday I pulled off a really BIG surprise for Kevin. I'm impressed with myself because I suck at surprises. For the past 14 years I have not once been able to keep a secret or surprise Kevin with something. Not this time... I kept my mouth shut and my story straight.

I surprised Kevin with a visit from his sister (also my best friend...that's right I married my best friend's brother), Lauren. I surprised her with the airline ticket in early April for her birthday. You see, the last time she had seen Kevin he was still in critical condition, still on life support. It was heartbreaking to see her leave in October not knowing if her brother would wake up or not. So you can see the emotional build up here?

I drove to LAX picked her up and sent Kevin a message on facebook saying "thank you for taking the boys to school this morning so I could pick up your surprise." He told me later he thought that I bought him something during my travels. LOL About ten minutes later I posted the picture to the left of Lauren & I on facebook and tagged him saying SURPRISE!!! His reply was "NO!!! WAY!!!" He called me, he was indeed surprised, and then it took Lauren & I an hour and a half on the damn freeway to get home. Gotta love LA!

The pic to the right is when she saw Kevin, in person, awake and living with an LVAD.

It was truly a magical weekend of smiles, eating ice-cream, playing miniature golf, going to the beach, eating pizza at Bucca di Beppo, laughing, strawberry picking, playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and enjoying each others company. Her visit was uplifting not only for Kevin but for my boys and myself. The surprise may have been for Kevin but Aunt Lauren impacted all of our lives this weekend. My little family of four is still enjoying this "high" on our emotional roller-coaster ride of living with an LVAD.

Lauren....if you're reading this, which I hope you are, we love you. We thank you for bringing some sunshine into our lives even if it was only for a weekend.

Dave, Grandma, & Grandpa, and all of our local Socal friends.......thank you for helping me keep this a secret. It worked!!!

My little family of four would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our beating hearts.  :-)

Aunt Lauren ROCKS!!

pic of us all on a tractor ride going strawberry picking!