The week(end) in pictures 6

So the last thing I said in my last entry was "Darren, I love you more. You're the best husband on the planet." That's because I had forgotten to mention my little weekend trip for the past several weeks. Wednesday night, I said, "Uh, by the way... this is the weekend I'm going to Canton. We're leaving tomorrow." He replied, "Oh. That's this weekend? Ok. Have a great time!"

We had a fabulous time. I scrapbooked to my heart's content (several of my own pages and even a couple for Cara), watched the Mavs whoop up on the Spurs Thursday night, shopped and shopped and shopped, laughed and giggled, visited and talked and talked and talked....

Today, you should've seen Cara's Tahoe and Kristi's Suburban loaded down with our loot. Both were stuffed to the gills with a chair for me, lots of iron crosses and other cool iron stuff, 5 groovy plant stands, a red bucket that I just love, and 20-some-odd plants. (Canton is the BEST place to buy potted/hanging plants. Today we learned that Lowe's actually buys their plants from the ladies who sell at Canton!) We even had a wicker love seat tied to the top of Kristi's Suburban. There's more that I'm forgetting. Just trust me when I say we were loaded down to the max.

On the way home tonight, Darren called. "Hey. The kids and I are headed over to Dale and Kristi's to watch the game. Why don't you just come over here instead of going home?"

"I'll just go on home. I'm exhausted and I smell nasty and besides, I need to unload my stuff from Kristi's car."

"That's okay. Just go to their house and we'll take it home from there."

"I don't think it'll fit in the car," I countered.

"We'll make it work. Please. I want you to go to their house."

"Why do you want me to come so bad?" I asked.

"'Cause I missed you. A lot," he answered.

Well, that was good enough for me. I agreed and said I'd be there in an hour or so.

When we arrived, I noticed that our car wasn't there.

"I wonder why they aren't here yet?" I asked as Kristi pulled in to the driveway.

"I don't know," she said. "Did he say they'd be here?"

"Yah. He said they were on their way over. That was an hour ago."

I will admit here that I was starting to get cranky about it, 'cause I REALLY wanted a shower and was thinking I should've just gone home and taken one.

"Maybe that's your new car sitting out there on the street," Kristi said.

I laughed.

"Would Darren do that?" she asked.

"Never in a million years," I answered with conviction.

As we walked up the back steps to her house, my boys met me coming down.

"Dad bought you a new car today," Aidan said.

"Yah," added Ian. "But it's just HIS car."

Then I looked up and saw Darren standing there, grinning from ear to ear, dangling keys.

"It's YOURS," he beamed.

Let me tell you.
I'm not one who's often at a loss for words.
But none came to me.
I just stood there in silent shock.
I do believe my mouth hung agape.
For what seemed like several minutes.

I hadn't even paid attention to the car parked out on the street. I only knew that it wasn't my (nasty, un-airconditioned, ugly, purple, 1993, transmission-slipping ghetto) van or Darren's Corolla. We walked out the front door and I saw it: red.

"You bought me a RED CAR!!!" I squealed.
Darren beamed.

I was speechless again.

Darren's not a spontaneous guy. We've talked about getting an SUV before, but he's always been adamantly against it. He's always said we'd probably get another (ugly) minivan, 'cause they're practical. I had resigned myself to that reality. I'd also resigned myself to the fact that we wouldn't be buying ANYthing for another year or so. I was ready to deal with another summer of no air-conditioning. (Although, Darren's been driving the van everyday so far this summer - which in Fort Worth, started mid-April - so that the kids and I didn't have to swelter.)

But dude surprised me.
BIG TIME.
I can no longer say he's not spontaneous.
I had no idea when I wrote on Thursday "I love you more", and he said to me that night on the phone, "We'll see about that", that he was cooking up this little plan.

I love this man. I love him I love him I love him!
(And the new car ain't bad either!)