Surprises!

SURPRISE #1: Brandon's parents arrived this past Thursday to surprise Brandon for this birthday weekend. Without Brandon knowing, I had arranged it so that he would be on anesthesia his first week of surgery so that he would get the weekend off so that his parents could come out here. I picked his parents up at the airport Thursday afternoon and we were able to sneak into our apartment while Brandon was in the other room and when he came out, he didn't even realize they were sitting on our couch and just started talking to me in the kitchen! I told him to look in the living room for his birthday surprise and he was shocked to see his parents there! They did a great job planning the trip without him knowing! Brandon was also excited to open his gifts right after his parents unpacked! That night we went to dinner at Paradise Pete's and then showed Brandon's parents where I will be working. We also went on a nice walk at Quarry Hill Park.

Brandon showcasing his birthday presents!

The building where I will be working starting Sept. 5th

SURPRISE #2: Brandon's parents surprised me as well by bringing me my favorite type of Baskin and Robbins ice cream, Daquiri Ice, all the way from Oregon! They packed it in dried ice in a cooler that they checked in their luggage....I was so surprised! They know exatly what makes me excited....desserts! :) I had never really played with dried ice before and it was neat to see the smoke form when you pour warm water over it. Brandon also had fun playing with it in a glass!
The dried ice in our sink

SURPRISE #3: Ok, so this isn't really a surprise but I thought it would be fun to add one more since I did title the post "Surprises!". On Friday, Brandon and I both surprised his parents by getting done early in the day. We were both done by 1pm which gave us time to drive down to Lanesboro to go bicycling for the day. The weather was nice so we took advantage of it! It was fun to rent side by side tandems and it was pretty to ride along the Root River on the bike path. The bikes were pretty fun to ride since only one person can steer but you can both control the pace at which you pedal. Brandon thought it was fun to try to steer in opposite directions...I wasn more worried that we would tip over even though they told us that the bikes are very stable! We got energy for our bike ride by having ice cream beforehand. After our bike ride, we ate dinner along the river in Lanesboro and it was a lovely night. We ordered a huge brownie for dessert and all shared it...we had a great night!

Getting our energy for the bike ride!

The side by side tandems

Brandon's parents in front of a little pie shop that we heard was good even though none of us had any since we were full from the ice cream!

Part of the trail

SURPRISE #4: Originally, this was going to be a seperate post but I thought since I was talking about surprises that I should mention it here. We were all surprised on Saturday when it POURED all day. All of us Oregonians had never seen so much rain in our lives! It rained the whole day and then stormed the whole night. We ended going up to the Cities to stay inside at the Mall of America and at the Twins baseball game, but I think everyone else had the same idea as both places were very crowded. I drove on the way home and was hydroplaning so much that I could only go 40mph for a bunch of the way home. We did get a lightning show the whole way home but it was very difficult to drive with all of the rain. It turns out that bad flooding ocurred in parts of Southern Minnesota and even in parts of Rochester. We surveyed the damage on Sunday and paths that I normally run on where under 6 feet or so of water and the city water dam did not look like a dam. It was even with the rest of the lake water... It was amazing! People are saying that they have never seen anything like this. One of my coworkers had to be rescued by a boat since she was at her sister's house in Minnesota City where they had several people die. A lot of people have water in their basements and all of the stores are out of pumps... I will include some pictures in my next post since I can't them to load for some reason!