Yay! I can finally say it...

I've had a huge thing going on in my life over the last few weeks but I couldn't talk about it here in fear of my sister reading about it. But now it's over and I can finally tell you all about it!

We had my sister's baby shower over the weekend! Phew! It felt good to say that - haha! We decided to have a barbecue / shower and if you know my sister, you know why ;-) She's a cop - she's not a girly girl - and a lot of her friends are male. So we decided to have a barbecue for the food (ya know, burgers, hot dogs, salads, ribs, etc.) and then we would leave the men and kids outside and the ladies would go in the house to do presents. After all that was over, we would have cake.

We had everyone arrive at 1pm with my sister coming at 2pm. My sister is *always* early so we left that hour figuring she would get there at least 20 minutes before she was supposed to. She had changed her plans several times - first she was coming up in the morning and cleaning out her old room, then she was coming up a little later and going to Costco and Kmart, etc. Every time we asked her what she was doing, there was a different story. So we really weren't sure how it all was going to work because she didn't have her day planned out at all! She decided to go to my parents and unload her truck, then she sat around and talked *forever*, then she went shopping. I finally called her a quarter after 2 to ask her where she was. She said she was shopping but would be there soon. I didn't want to sound suspicious so I told her I was bored, I didn't know anyone at the barbecue and she had to get there NOW to save me. Ok she says she's on her way. Thank goodness!! She finally gets there and walks in the side gate (we were all in the backyard waiting for her) but she decides rather than going right into the backyard, she wants to go in the side entrance for the house to go to the bathroom. So my dad keeps pushing her and says "I think someone just called you" to get her to go into the backyard. She walks back and can't figure out why everyone is staring at her and taking pictures - haha!! I THINK WE ACTUALLY SURPRISED HER!! You have to understand how huge that is in my family. For every surprise party, bridal shower, baby shower, etc. we have to REALLY surprise the person. And one of the first things Cheryl said to us after she found out she was pregnant was that we would never be able to surprise her. But we did it ;-)

She went around and talked to everyone while my brother started grilling up the food. Everyone sat around the backyard eating and talking like it was a regular barbecue. Then the ladies moved to the living room and we did presents and shower games. Cheryl and Rich got tons of great stuff and everyone had fun. And Rich was tortured by the ladies - we put every bow from every present on him. We also made a "daddy's on doody" workbelt for him that had masks, noseclips, goggles, duct tape, diapers, etc. in it. He really took it all like a good sport - I'm very proud of him!! After that we had cake and then it was cleanup time! They packed up a million different cars with the gifts and still couldn't fit everything so there is stuff at both my mom's house and my brother's house that they have to pick up this week.

It really was a great time. I was, of course, exhausted afterwards. By the time I got back to my parents house and got Shayla to bed, I was ready to go to bed myself! It was a long day of standing, walking around making sure everyone was happy, helping Cheryl with the presents, chasing Shayla around, etc. I think I sat down for all of 20 minutes during the whole thing.

I'll have to go through pictures (ours, my parents, my brothers, and my sister-in-laws) and post some later.

And on a surrogacy note - I have my repeat beta test tomorrow. *fingers crossed* for huge numbers!! Although if my symptoms tell me anything, we are doing just fine ;-)