She's Back!

For the last 2-3 months I have been keeping a secret. Our best bud Sarah has been living in Israel for what seems like forever! She did visit us briefly in June last year for Roula's wedding, but at that stage we weren't sure if she was ever coming back.

A few months ago Sarah told me that she was finally coming home...I couldn't believe it. Sarah is also my maid of honour so it was a bonus to have her back early. I found Sarah's mum a job with our catering team last year so I always see her around work. Every time I went looking for biscuits in the kitchen, I would get lectured by her mum "you should tell Sarah to come home! get her away from her ex! Israel isn't safe!...etc. etc." and I would have to say something like "yeah but she's happy there, we want her to be happy!". It was hard keeping up the act but Sarah wanted me to so that it would be an even bigger surprise when she came back.

Planning the Surprise

With everyone working it's pretty hard to get people together on a weeknight, especially for the girls who work crazy hours at Mac Bank. We thought about a surprise over lunch or a dinner after work, but some people couldn't get out till after 9:00pm. The hardest part was looking for an excuse where no one would pull out despite how tired they were after work. On Monday I sent this email out:
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From: Emily
Sent: Monday, 15 January 2007 9:38 AM
To:
Subject: Tomorrow night

Morning Girls,

Something has happened which I need to tell you guys about over dinner tomorrow. I have dinner with Jacky's family tonight and to be honest I don't really want to talk or think about it till then. I would really appreciate it if you guys could be there but understand if you are working.

How about Dinner at either 6:30 or 7pm?

Then maybe dessert or tea back at my place depending on time.

Please let me know if you can make it.

Em

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The people I consulted when writing the email thought that it sounded like we were eloping or announcing that we're moving overseas; but my friends all thought that I was pregnant!?!?! (You got to be kidding me!) So I then had to spend the rest of Monday and Tuesday avoiding all phone calls and questions. Lucky for me I was in the Canberra office all Tuesday so it wasn't that bad.

Tuesday Afternoon

Things didn't go quite according to plan. The twins were suppose to call me before they came so that we knew they were coming. Sarah would come early to leave her stuff before going to buy dinner. Once the twins were at my place I was suppose to suggest to the them to order take-away and when the 'delivery person' arrived the twins would get the door and there would be Sarah standing there (Kat would join us later in the night).

Sarah had only just arrived at my place when my mobile rang...the twins were at the front gate...there was no way that Sarah could exit my place with out passing them. We needed a plan B and quick!

Plan B: Sarah to hide upstairs. Get the twins to sit down in the kitchen then tell them I couldn't start till Jacky was here. When I yelled for Jacky to come down Sarah would follow.

Once again things didn't quite go according to plan, but when Sarah appeared the look on their faces was priceless! There was this moment of silence (the twins are never silent) when you could see that they were having trouble processing what they were seeing.

After Betty got over the shock she beat me up for not telling her, especially since I spent all Saturday with her.

(you must excuse my home clothes!)

We later sprung a similar surprise on Kat and stayed up talking till almost midnight. Welcome back! I'm so relieved that the cat is out of the bag!