After a long week of traveling, planning, and celebrating, Rob and I were looking forward to a quiet late lunch on Sunday. My parents had made the 200-mile-drive from Gaylord to see us while we were in Detroit, and Rob was going to meet them for the first time. We were turning the corner to my Aunt & Uncle's house when I said to Rob, "It's really nice that you get to meet just my parents and my Aunt and Uncle now, instead of all of my sisters at the same time!"
Boy were we surprised...
My Aunt had planned a surprise engagement party for us. The first surprise was when we were standing in the kitchen chatting over a suspiciously large quantity (in hindsight) of food. My nephew ran into the kitchen and then three of my four sisters appeared out of the living room. Instead of lunch for 6, it was a party of 13. The next surprise was when we went to the basement to eat and there was a cake and a present! It was a great afternoon. Rob also has a large family, so he took it all in stride.
They got us a wine fridge for our new apartment, which raised a bit of a logistics problem. On the trip to Michigan, we thought we did pretty well to cram into the Beetle all of our clothes for a week, including a couple of sets of dress clothes for the wedding. On the way back, we learned that we still had room for a wine fridge, a case of wine, and a couple of potted plants -- even a very elegant orchid that rode right behind the center console and survived the trip unscathed.
We didn't drive home with the top down, but it sure helps with loading and unloading!
