About a month ago, our old exchange student, Andrea, from Ecuador emailed me about visiting for the weekend. She is currently attending medical school in Ecuador and had the opportunity to go to Florida for 5 weeks for part of an internship at a dermatology office there. She wanted to fly to Iowa for one of the weekends for a visit, and to keep it as a surprise for mom and Rachel! It ended up being the perfect weekend, as I was off work and because Rachel had a baby shower planned in Hampton on Saturday we were all planning on spending the weekend at mom and dad's anyway. She arrived in Cedar Rapids on Friday morning, and I went to pick her up. I had made up a story about how I had a friend flying in that afternoon and asked mom to take the afternoon off to help take care of Ava on the drive down. When she came to my house at around 11:30 on Friday, Ava told her there was a surprise for her in the kitchen and when she walked in and saw Andrea she nearly peed her pants. My dad had also taken the day off and was there as well. After we ate lunch, we went to surprise Rachel at school there. She was stunned as well. We spent the weekend laughing, catching up, and having lots of fun.
After the shower we also spent a few hours going through stuff at my grandma's house. I ended up with some very special pieces including several tea cups and saucers, a tea pot, a crystal cake stand, and when we went through her jewelry I ended up with her mother's ring. I remember being a little girl always admiring her 8 stoned mother's ring and remember always asking her which stone was for who. I'm so glad I ended up with it!
Rachel 35 weeks, Wendy 20 weeks
