SURPRISE!

One of my favorite weekends every year is the St. Paul’s annual retreat to Kanuga, an Episcopal camp and conference center in the mountains outside Hendersonville.  I’ve gone every year since I was 4 years old, and some of my favorite childhood memories are from those weekends when we (David and I, the Shores and Martins, among others) had freedom and independence and would spend all weekend playing baseball and just hanging out.  Recently, however, high school and college exams have meant that fewer of those friends have been able to make it to Kanuga.  So when I was Skyping with David a couple months ago and he told me that the whole core group (plus spouses!) was going this year, it was big news!  Those are my best friends, and I don’t get to see any of them often, much less everyone together plus families.  David ended the conversation reminding me that the only thing separating me (and/or Caroline, who has now made it to Kanuga all three years we’ve been dating) was a few hundred dollars.

Kanuga 2007

Kanuga 1994?

What a tough decision!  After all, a few hundred dollars, giving up one of our cherished weekends to travel in Costa Rica, and the carbon footprint of flying that far all adds up to a lot.  But on the other hand, I’d been hoping to get all these people back to Kanuga for years, and who knows if there will be a next time, plus we’d get to see both of our families, so I decided to see what Caroline thought about it.  We wanted to take our time with the decision, so after a week of letting it marinate, I again asked Caroline what she was thinking, and she said she thought we should do it!  So after she cleared it with her parents (who said it was about time she did something kinda crazy but if she did anything crazier not to tell them), we started looking for tickets.  They usually cost around $600, but amazingly we found some for $400 with a 20-hour overnight layover in Houston on the way home, which turned out to be perfect!  We remembered that Emily Frazelle (wife of David Frazelle, who is a priest at Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill) is from Houston, so we had a wonderful adventure with her charming father touring Houston (Rice University, the de Menil art gallery, Hermann Park, the world’s largest medical complex accompanied by a detailed description of the history of each – Winston has the most encyclopedic mind I’ve ever come across, and I’m convinced he knows half the population of Houston)!  It’s hard to pick, but I’d have to say the highlight was eating Cajun food at the Episcopal cathedral downtown.  Winston gave us superb recommendations – the shrimp etoufee was amazing, and he sent us off with buttercake for the plane (it’s as rich as it sounds; I didn’t feel so great after eating a piece and a half…).  Airport was a little complicated, as someone had entered our terminal and shot himself half an hour before we arrived, so our flight was delayed since they had locked down everyone in the terminal, including our flight crew.  Good thing Mom and Dad still thought we were in Costa Rica!

Emily's awesome parents

Cajun food!

When we eventually made it, Caroline’s family picked us up at the airport and took us to a nice Mexican restaurant mmmmm, then we all stayed up late talking at her house.  I got sick that night and Friday morning L  In the morning we had fun talking to Mrs. Williams, who was the only one home, then we drove to Winston to surprise Mom and Dad.  We knew from David that we were gonna get home about the same time as Dad, so to make sure we got to surprise him too, Caroline and I pulled over into a church at the entrance to my neighborhood to watch for Dad, but a car pulled in right next to us and turns out it was Dad!!!  Haha he later told us he had recognized Caroline’s car and, assuming it was her parents, followed them to surprise them, but he was the one who got surprised!  His reaction was good, but we all knew Mom’s would be the best, so we got him in on it and after we snuck in the house with him, he called Mom downstairs into the room where we were waiting for her, and her face was priceless.  She just stared at us open-mouthed for a few seconds while we watched the gears turning - video below :)  Then it was time for Kanuga!  Walking into dinner was really fun too; we surprised and confused a lot of people.  Lots of hugs and smiles!

kickball

Kanuga itself was just as great as we were hoping – we played kickball, hiked, worked on puzzles, played fishbowl by the fire, listened to Lynn Parsley’s talk, had our lakeside church service, walked up to the outdoor chapel at night, and most importantly of course got to spend lots of time with so many loved ones!!  To top it all off, after getting back to Chapel Hill on Sunday, we had another night with Caroline’s family and a late-night visit with David and Emily Frazelle J  Easily one of the best weekends of my life.  Due to a storm Monday morning, we thought for a while we were going to miss our connecting flight to Costa Rica, but we prayed about it and sure enough, after running through the Newark airport, we made it (another familiar theme – answered prayers, that is, not running through the Newark airport)!  The long flight back to Costa Rica was enhanced by our decision to splurge on movies; we watched The Life of Pi (fine), Argo (thrilling), and part of Parental Guidance (I thought it was hilarious).

playing fishbowl :)

most of my favorite people in the whole world!