The Surprise

A couple of weeks back my sister-in-law, Maren asked if I wanted tickets to a pre-showing of The Hunger Games.  I decided to keep it a secret and surprise Tom since I knew it was a movie he really wanted to see.  There were only two problems, the time and the place.  The tickets were for the 6pm show at Jordan Commons, in Sandy.  Tom usually didn't get off work until after 5pm downtown and very rarely made it home by 6:00.  Unfortunately it was not for a showing at the Megaplex in the Gateway, because that would be within walking distance of Tom's work.  So I had a bit of a challenge to pull the whole thing off. Here's the story of last night's surprise...  

First, I arranged for a babysitter.  That part was easy.  Then I had to arrange to get Tom off of work on time, or even better, early.  That part was harder.  Luckily I have an 'in' at Tom's office since my brother-in-law, Matt also works there and knows Tom's manager.  He was able to talk to him and arrange to get Tom off by 4:30 that day.  However, I know Tom and I knew that if he had work off early he would probably run errands on his way home and still not make it until 6-ish.  And I didn't want to cut things too close.  So I decided to kidnap him from work.  This planning was the trickiest of all.  First I hid our spare car seat in his trunk (here is Cedric trying it out).

I was worried he'd find it, especially when he happened to pick Wednesday night (the night I put it in there) to put our D.I. bag in his trunk so he could drop it off sometime.  Luckily I caught him carrying it out and told him I'd do it if he could do me a favor and tuck the kids into bed.  Thank goodness he didn't question me.  

The reason I had to hide the car seat in his car was because I was planning on taking the Trax train down to his work.  The train literally  goes from a few blocks from our house to a block from Tom's work.  This way we didn't have to leave his car downtown and I could drive him to his secret destination.  Here's Sophie and I on Trax.

 I was so grateful it was a beautiful day, it made it so much more fun to travel with my little sweetie.  I had arranged with Matt to have Tom meet me in the lobby of his work at 4:30.  It took me a few minutes longer than I thought to walk there because of some construction, but right as I was approaching the building, out walked Matt and Tom.  Here's Tom not sure what's going on yet.

 Note the backpack on the ground.  I had to pack not only all of Sophie's necessities, but a change of clothes for Tom, our Megaplex mug and of course, some Red Vines :)
I handed Tom his change of clothes and told him to hurry and get dressed.  Then we walked to his car and headed off.  He admitted he had a pretty good idea as to where we were going, but I told him no guessing as I have a terrible poker face.  He texted me his guess instead so I could see later if he was right or not.  His hunch was correct, and as we approached the theater he told me how excited he was to see the movie!  We had a few minutes to get our food, use the bathroom, and of course get pictures with the actors themselves.

 We finally got settled in our seats.  Here we are, Sophie, Tom, me, Tom's Mom & Maren.

 Sophie wasn't very quiet, which made it a little less enjoyable.  She was hungry at first so she started to fuss, but when she was done eating she was happy and just 'talking' away at the movie screen.  Then she started to get tired and fussy again.  Tom got her to sleep for a few minutes, but it didn't last long.  I ended up spending the last half hour or so standing in the side isle holding Sophie, who was then happy, but still loud.  I felt bad she was so disruptive, especially since the movie had a lot of quite parts.  Even when I opened my Red Vines I felt like the whole theater could hear it.
Overall it was a good movie and it was fun to see how they portrayed the book.  But the best part was surprising Tom and just doing something fun and out of the blue because I love him.
Thanks Maren for the tickets.  Thanks Matt for being my inside man.  Thanks Mom for helping with Sophie.  Thanks Audrey for being our babysitter.  And Thanks Tom for the fun date :)