I hope everyone is doing well. Things have been crazy in my world lately with the various activities that the arrival of spring brings. I have gotten a little behind on this blog as well as other things.
Anyway, recently I surprised my mother in Racine, Wisconsin for her 70th birthday on April 9. Like true sneaky detectives, my brother “Intense Dave” and I arrived early morning of her birthday into Racine. I made a few phone calls from my cell phone to our unsuspecting target in an effort to locate her.
The first call was disguised as the ceremonious son calling her mother on her birthday when he was on lunch break in North Carolina.
Unfortunately, I was not able to reach her directly. I am able to ascertain her potential whereabouts from her boyfriend Brian.
According to Brian, my mother was out with my sister at a weight watcher session and then the plan was they they were going to Sam’s club to pick up a gift for my brother’s upcoming birthday. Since the cat was already out of the bag on the birthday gift, Dave and I headed to Sam’s club to surprise our target. After searching the parking lot for signs of Sue’s or mom’s cars to no avail, we decided to head into Sams. We headed straight for the Green Bay Packer desk chairs that they were scheduled to pickup. We waited for awhile and looked around a bit. After awhile, we noticed that one of the chairs was missing. We found out later that they came into Sams and grabbed the chair and left. The target was missed.
We then decided to head to mom’s favorite frozen custard place called Culver’s to see if they went have a treat on her birthday. Again we perused the parking lot for the cars and did not see them. We decided to go in anyway as we like a little frozen custard and butter burgers ourselves. Dave decided to call Sue about an upcoming camping trip. He found out that Sue just dropped off Mom at her house and was heading home to do some work.
We quickly headed to mom’s house to surprise the target. We were greeted by Brian at the door. He looked like may have had a slight heart attack but appeared to recover very quickly. He was able to tell us that just after being dropped off, mom headed out to door to run some errands.
So, since Sue was not in our surprise yet and we wanted to have some success in our efforts, we headed to surprise Sue at her house. Besides the surprise, this would give us an additional resource to work on surprising mom. We arrived at her house and rang the door bell. No one answered. We waited a minute. We tried again with the door bell. Again no one answered. Now, there is no way we missed our secondary target or was there? I decided to peek in the front window of the house into Sue’s office area. Sure enough, she was sitting at her desk talking on the phone.
I was not going to be confused and ignored as a door-to-door sales person. I moved to the side of the house, put my face squarely in the window next to her desk, and gently rapped on the window. This did get her attention. You should have seen the look on her face. Soon the front door was opened, and we were greeting by my sister wearing her headset in conference with a client on the phone. We quietly waited for the conversation to end.
Once it ended, Dave called mom to see what she was up to on her birthday. He determined that she her next errand stop was a Christian book store called “Commitments'” to pickup a gift for one of her many grandchildren. The three of us piled into Dave’s car and headed to the store. Upon arrival, we did notice that her car was parked on the street out front of the store. Our target was in close proximity.
I was dropped off at the door and they went to park the car. Once inside the store, I found the target discussing gift options with an employee. I grabbed a book from the children’s section and waited for the employee to leave. Once she left, I approached my mother with my book in hand and asked her if she thought this would make a good gift for a child. She promptly offered her help and started asking me questions about the child to determine if this book was a fit. It seemed like it was years before she finally realized that she was talking to her son from North Carolina that she had not seen since last summer but it probably was less than a minute. I was proud of mom for her verbal restraint as no inappropriate words were uttered/screamed at the point of surprise impact. This could have proved disastrous in a Christian book store.
Anyway, it was a great visit with mom.
One of the things we did was to visit the Harley Davidson museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Here are some shots from this visit.
Now to the my “peeps”
Here is “Indiana Ethan” my nephew Ethan.
Here is my niece “Angel Abi.”
Finally, my co-conspirator and big brother “Intense Dave” .
Talk to you soon.
Recently, I had the pleasure to capture some images of my time hanging with the Weishoff family. They are great bunch of people even for some cheese heads from Wisconsin. :) I guess there is nothing wrong with cheese heads because I am one of them myself. Technically, I am a southern-fried cheese head. If you come to North Carolina in August from Wisconsin, you would be be one also. I have experienced over 28 of these Augusts in the south so I am good and fried now. 
The entire gallery can be found 
I must say that this looks a little like Peter Criss makeup. Naw! can’t be! No KISS for Jackie! Only Sophie, Savannah, and I want to rock n’ roll all nite and party everyday!! 
The approval from her oldest child! 
Not real sure exactly what is going on with her hand. Anyway, have you ever tried to hold a camera still in a bouncy house? 
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