Happy Birthday, Buds!

His birthday was on Saturday, and Yessa and I were trying valiantly to get Babs moved to her new apartment so that we could drive home in time to surprise Buds on his big day.

Trying to surprise him, not knowing when we would actually be leaving Iowa, involved many lies of omission and commission. We looped in Buster and Monkey as well, knowing that accomplices would be helpful.

We left Iowa on late Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., which meant it was physically impossible to be home on his birthday since we faced a 14 hour drive.

We had stopped sharing our location with him earlier in the week, at Yessa's suggestion, to ensure he had no way of seeing where we were. On the drive we called him once to tell him a fable about being in the car to drive to a park for a run. Once that call was out of the way, we felt pretty sure he wouldn't call us again, so we could just settle in and drive.

Yessa took the first shift, giving me hours to rest and recover from a headache.

We discussed staying at a hotel, but ultimately decided that was not needed, but a couple hours sleep at a rest stop would be a welcome break.

We drove into Ohio around 1:30 a.m. and picked a quiet resting place. We had plenty of towels and pillows to create a cozy cave for sleeping in.

Locked the doors, turned on raindrops on my phone, and settled in.

At 5 a.m. when the Starbucks inside opened, we filled up, and started off again.

A couple stops for gas, a Panera meal, a 12 hour audio book, lots of great conversation, and at 11:30 a.m. we drove onto our very own street. Yessa had been texting with the elder siblings so they were ready inside the house to be sure it was Dad who opened the door. We parked at the end of our block to be sure he didn't see us unexpectedly.

We knocked, he answered...all the deceptions worked.

We've been home a couple days now, and it's so good to be here.

Happy Birthday, Buds.