Surprise!!!!!

Our mischievous neighbor, Miss Katie, always has something up her sleeves (in a good way of course, she likes to keep us on our toes). She knew I'd love to learn how to make pedaheh (pirogi, but in Ukraine they are called pedaheh) so she planned a day we could go over to Aunt Helen's house so she could show me how to make the dough (Aunt Helen is a 92 year old woman who's got all her marbles and is a riot to be around!). Nick and I got up early Saturday morning and left the house by 9. We went to Aunt Helen's house and made the dough and chit chatted for a while before heading to the Y for shrimp kipper lessons with Sweets. During lessons I'd asked Glen if he and Meredith wanted to come over to have pedaheh for dinner. Of course, I'd forgotten I'd already asked Mer and she told me they had a birthday party to go to that evening.

The beautiful Miss Hanna

After lessons were done we went home and vegged out. Suddenly it dawned on us, we had some stuff to do before Katie and Margaret (Katie's sister) came over to fill the dough and make pedaheh for dinner. Nick called Katie to find out what we needed. She said she would get the potatoes on to boil and we could pick up anything else we wanted to go inside like cheese, bacon, meat etc, or to go as a side. When Nick got off the phone he turned to me and said, "It sounded like she thought we were going to get all that stuff ready." I was a bit confused because she hadn't told me what to get to go inside the pedaheh, or told me to get potatoes boiling, and wasn't she supposed to be teaching me how to do this? Why hadn't she told me what to do....chitta....I was overthinking it and worrying too much. In the mean time, there was stuff around the house I needed to do before Katie, Lori, and Margaret came over. Off to the store Nick went, and into the chores I went.

Sweets, playing with the basket.

We were supposed to be at Katie's house for a group picture at 4. I'd text Meredith earlier and asked if 4 would work for her and Glen because I knew they had to be at their party by 4:30 and I didn't want them to have to be scurrying around trying not to be late. Meredith said it was a perfect time and she'd see me then. Since Margaret was in town she would be able to get all the neighbors in a picture together (we'd been unsuccessfully trying to do this for a couple months). By the time we were done with the chores it was 3:35. I told Nick to set an alarm on his clock and we all laid on the couch for a snooze.

A short snooze later we got Sweets packed up in the stroller and off we went, down to Katie's house. As we were walking down I saw a circle of chairs in the Runion's front yard (another family on the block). All I could think was how a circle was an odd way to set the scene for a group picture. But wait! There were more people there than neighbors! Katie's nieces and nephews were there too. SURPRISE!!!!! They all got together and planned a going away gathering for us. Katie, you sly, sly devil!

Here's the real kicker. I wanted to to a pig roast with the neighbors before we moved. I shot out an email to everyone asking what weekend worked for them. NO one was answering. Little did I know, Katie had already started making plans for this surprise and was trying to accommodate both, or decide to tell us we couldn't throw our own party. Because they didn't want to spoil their surprise, all the neighbors decided to go along with the pig roast AND have the surprise. One weekend right after the other.

Nicholas and I have truly been blessed with the best friends we could possibly ask for. Moving to Rochester has been a growing experience for the both of us. Being so far away from family,only having each other to depend on was the way to go right after getting married. We made friends as a couple that will stay in our hearts no matter where we live.