operation surprise joshua

okay so the "post the trip story tomorrow" thing worked really well....NOT. haha sorry for the delay-if you only knew the chaos that ensues the week prior to thanksgiving sheesh. so i don't really know where to begin, its all fairly long and complicated so i'll do my best to keep it short or maybe i'll decided to break this up into multiple posts-not too sure how i feel yet!
so wednesday i went for girls day with emily, as we already know from my airport post :) it was a blast, i think i almost had a heart attack 4 times on the way into the airport terminal, twice in security, another 3 times waiting in the gate for two hours and probably another 5 on the plane, but i felt much better after landing, though i'm pretty sure joshua didn't appreciate the 4 hour delay in text (he decided to nap right at 2ish, and my plane didn't leave til 4-hence the need for multiple heart attacks, cause i was sure he wasn't gonna believe my movie and dinner story, but he did, thank goodness :) ) sooo anyway i sat by some nice ladies on the plane, they were sisters and hadn't seen each other in nearly a year so listening to their stories was quite entertaining!  when i got off the plane, i ran to the potty cause i was shocked by the 50 degree weather after being in the warm plane, and just as i made it down the escalator my bag was almost all the way around the carousel-perfect timing! then i called miss leia and she and her friend morgan picked me up. as soon as i got in the car they say "so are you hungry? do you like mexican food?" and i did my best not to laugh because i knew they were just being polite, but i did have to say "uh, i live in arizona....of course i love mexican food!" i was a little iffy of course because how do you really find legit mexican food in birmingham alabama? i thought it was gonna be like taco bell or something lol but we went to a little hole in the wall place called "los compadres". it wasn't too bad-but it definitely ain't no REAL mexican food like we have here, but it will do in a craving situation for future reference. the salsa i'm pretty sure was canned, and those were DEFINITELY not fresh chips-dang we are so spoiled here lol. oh and i ordered the taco platter. um i don't know if you've ever had a taco platter here in the az but it usually comes with fresh tortillas, delicious meat of your choice and a whole lotta rice and beans. yum. unfortunately this does not happen in the birmingham-you do get three very yummy tacos, but you get like grocery store tortillas and some cheese and lettuce  bahahha :) but i had a lot of fun and i met leia's other friend john too and we all had a great time chatting-john was super curious about arizona, it is so funny to see people's reaction when you say you came from arizona-their jaws all drop and they all say some variation of "you came ALL the way from arizona!?" like it's the other side of the world or something lol. after dinner we went back to leia's house and talked for hours and finally went to bed! i woke up fairly early the next morning for me and leia and i ate breakfast-then tried to plan our day full of things so we wouldn't be bored til gametime at 7 pm. boy lemme tell ya it is no easy task to make a whole day go by when you are wishing it was later lol. we ate lunch and went to the park, and ran errands, and it was only 1!! killer. we had so much fun though! i'm glad we had a whole day to just hang! we went early to tailgate-like 430 or 5ish and of course all of the mom's were dying to hear the surprise story, which was sweet! then i met katie and her family and they gave me my ticket to get in-they are so super sweet! and they even stuck around after the game to see josh's reaction. when it was finally time to go into the stadium leia and i walked directly into gramma and grandpa and i nearly died right on the spot! but somehow they managed not to recognize me so we ran up the stairs to get a spot and sat about 15-20 rows right behind them, i could see them the whole game but they couldn't see me! the game lasted FOREVER! unfortunately they lost, but i had so much fun sitting with leia and trey's family! his dad is super funny! and i met so many new friends!
 here is a picture of me right after the game ended trying to avoid the guys on the field seeing me and his grandparents! they are right to the right of my shoulder in the blue jackets!

they had no idea! as soon as we took this we ran out the gates to the spot where the players come out and did our best to hide ourselves so that josh and gramma and grampa wouldn't see! after what seemed like ten years they finally came out and leia told josh she had something for him, he knew something was up cause one of the guys had said "your night is about to get a whole lot better" but he wasn't sure still. when he got to me his jaw dropped and he was like "wow" haha and he just kinda stood there for a little bit-i think we definitely got him good cause he had NOOO idea whatsoever, all he could say was "wow" haha :) that's an extra point for me thank you very much :) his grandparents were quite shocked to and didn't really know what to say but it was definitely fun! and so worth all of the waiting! thank you to everyone who helped get it all together! especially Leia and Jesse who helped me plan the whole thing!