I am back in the U.S. and home for Christmas! My mom’s birthday was yesterday, Sunday, December 16th, and my sister and I decided to suprise her by me showing up unannounced for her birthday. I had originally booked my flight home for December 15th, but had also previously rescheduled it to come home later – on December 19th – so I would not miss so many of my Vietnamese classes. But we finished our Book 1 class early and don’t start Book 2 until January 7th, so I decided to revert to my original flight and come back home on the 15th.

I told my sister and a few other people that I was coming home on the 15th, but my mom didn’t know. In fact, my sister and I went out of our way to keep mom thinking that I was still coming home on the 19th: I sent mom an email last week telling her that I might not be able to call her on her birthday because I would be in Cambodia on a business trip; I put a blog post up about how I was going to be in Cambodia and coming home to the U.S. on the 19th; my sister emailed me and copied my mom on the email asking about the details of my arrival on the 19th, etc.

So anyway, I flew into Atlanta around midnight on the 15th, met my sister and her family in LaGrange, Georgia on the morning of the 16th. Here’s a photo of me meeting my new nephew, Hugh, for the first time ever:

He is so cute and so sweet! Anyway, after meeting in LaGrange, we drove over to my mom’s house in Thomaston. My sister had been telling my mom that my nephew, O, had a “special present” for mom, and that it was heavy so mom had to go into the bedroom when we got there so my sister could bring the present in out of the car without mom seeing it.

I then snuck in the back door and my brother-in-law and O and C helped me get situated under the big, purple Christmas bag you see above. My sister had the good idea of having me hold a pillow on top of my head under the bag so it would look less like a person and also in case my mom touched the bag before lifting it up.

Here is mom coming into the room toward the bag. It was hilarious because she was acting like she was very excited about getting her “special present” from O, saying “I wonder what it could be,” etc.:

Here’s she is poking the pillow I was holding on top of my head – so I’m glad my sister had that idea! I love this photo because you can see how excited O is as he watches from the sidelines:

When she started to lift the bag off of me, it kind of got stuck, so I started to help her by pushing the bag up off of me – when she saw the bag moving she jumped back and screamed “What is it?!?” really loudly:

Here’s her reaction right after I popped out from under the bag and said “Happy Birthday!”:

Mom really flipped out – she started screaming and crying and just stood there for a while with her hands covering her face crying. It was obvious that she had not figured out that I was coming home early! Here are some more photos:

It was a very fun morning – the kids were very excited and pleased that they got to surprise mom so much! My sister was videotaping the surprise, but something happened with her videocamera and it didn’t get filmed for some reason – but I think the photos above do a very good job of telling the story anyway!

So I am home and very happy to be here! It was a very long flight – from HCMC to Taipei, Taiwan, then Taipei to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to Atlanta. A total of about 25 hours of flying. No problems at all – made all of my connections, have all of my bags, etc. – it is just very tiring and really freaks your mind out due to the complete reversal of time.

I could only sleep about an hour and a half on Saturday night, and I was very tired all day yesterday. I took about an hour-long nap late yesterday afternoon, then went to bed about 8pm. I took some of the melatonin I’ve been taking (which is supposed o minimize jet lag) and also took a sleeping pill that I got in Vietnam, and I actually slept for 10 hours straight. I did wake up once during the night and looked around my room and had no idea where I was. It was a weird feeling and took me a few minutes to figure out where I was.

I’m going to just hang out here at my mom’s today – maybe go drive my Jeep around and go for a bike ride later this afternoon. Oh, it’s cold here! It’s apparently been really warm up unti just a couple of days ago, but that is not the case now. It was in the 30s yesterday and went down to 26 last night. Whenever I go outside I get goosebumps all over my arms and I start shivering. I guess it’s weird for your body to go from tropical weather to cold weather with no transition period at all!

I’ve had a great time seeing my family and telling them all about Vietnam. Here’s one last photo of O and C with some of the gifts I brought them from Vietnam:

I’ve enjoyed seeing them so much! And here’s one last photo of my new nephew Hugh AKA “Redefining Cuteness”!:

[Update: As Melissa noted in her comment, I am wearing the same clothes I wore to the airport back in July. Part of the trick we were playing on my mom was going to involve O & C giving her a photo of me and O & C on the day I left for Vietnam back in July - and then when mom "opened" her present, I would be sitting there wearing exactly the same clothes - as if I had never left. We decided at the last minute not to do that with the photo, but that's why I'm wearing the same clothes! Good eye, Melissa!]