i SURPRISED my mom (and myself even more!)

before i get to the fact that i’m sitting in kansas city right next to my uncle (who i rarely get to see and he flew in from san francisco), grandparents and mom…i first have to recap our time at the zoo so let me take you back to thursday…ravery and i took that darling boy jacob that my mother-in-law nannies to the houston zoo. more sweet pictures ensued.

whoa. check out my patella in this picture! it’s bursting with excitement to be at the zoo.

as we were taking pictures in this very cool lego-made animals part, a woman came up to us and offered to take our picture like we were a little family. it’s a little creepy because it kind of looks like we are. i actually cannot look at this picture too long because it freaks me out thinking about being a mom. ahhhhhhh look away, chelsea (but i kind of like looking at it too-what. is. happening.) i’m still coming into how to be a good wife and partner-i cannot even begin to think about adding mom to that yet!

here’s really the most important part about our zoo trip-you are able to FEED GIRAFFES at the houston zoo! it only costs $5 for 3 pieces of lettuce (um, hello money maker) and it was truly epic. this giraffe wrapped its slimy yet rough tongue along my fingers to get that leafy green into it’s mouth. absolutely amazing. please also note how overly adorable it is that i’m feeding an adult giraffe and jacob is feeding a baby giraffe!

then i got overly heated from the ridiculous heat that houston brings and almost passed out. literally. so we left (extreme humidity and i do not get along-i’m from colorado people! give me heat but dry air please!). okay, let’s get to the surprise already jeeeeeez (sometimes i get a little lengthy)-after i drank a gallon of water and took a nap (passed out), i awoke from a phone call from my grandparents. yes, i only receive phone calls from family. photo reenactment from this morning at 8:24am.

their voicemail said “if you’re available this weekend, we will help fly you out to kansas city to celebrate your uncle’s engagement!!!” i instantly started running around and jumping up and down and quickly searched for a flight that got in early friday! how amazing are they?! then we devised to surprise my mom (who flew in from colorado), which i’ve never done before! ravery was so sweet and not only took me to airport at 5am-but helped me through a panic attack right before we left/during the car ride/at the airport.

here’s the thing…i loooove to travel but i don’t actually enjoy the act of traveling-it makes me very anxious and i especially don’t like traveling alone. i also am not a huge fan of spontaneity, i happen to be a planner and need adequate time to process things so this was kind of a big deal for me to book a trip 14 hours before the plane left. ravery kept exclaiming how proud and impressed he was of me because he looooooves things of this nature (one of our relationships challenges at times).

the mind is a crazy thing but i am very happy i got through it and got on those planes because it was so fun to surprise everyone! there are no pictures posted of the amount of tears my mother and i shed when we saw one another-it was truly so fun just to walk in the house and say “oh hey, what’s going on here?”

i can’t tell you how happy i am to be here and the fact that i got to go for a 3 mile run in only 50% humidity because it’s unseasonable cool here yay! we also went to down to their farmers market to pick up some fresh veggies for later and i saw a vote going on for the funkiest tomato-ha! i voted for the lower right one because that huge bulldog to one side made me laugh.

today we are hard at work setting up for my uncle’s engagement party later and let me just tell you…my grandparents know how to host a party so it’s going to be epic and there is going to be KCMO (kansas city, MO) barbecue and 3 trays of brownies! mmmmmmm. happiness wins over anxiety. booyah.

wife lesson: as intense as anxiety can get, don’t let it take control because you will regret missing out on big things.

questions: (feel free to answer any/all of these or leave any comment if something spoke to you)
1) how do you feel about zoos? (i sometimes get really sad that the animals are trapped there and don’t like zoos but then the excitement of seeing giraffes outweighs that and i go)
2) do you ever get anxious traveling or struggle with anxiety?
3) when’s the last time you got to see your family?