Surprise for Katie

We've been a little worried about Katie feeling lost in the shuffle with all that's gone on around here the past few months. All of the things Robbie's dealing with (along with the rest of us in trying to help him) and then Samantha moving in here this summer had us worried she'd feel resentful or ignored. So far she's showed no signs of it other than reminding people that it IS her room! ;-) And she's made some comments in comparing herself to her brother or sister but no major acting out or anything like that, thankfully!

She was so sad that Celtic Thunder wasn't coming to Indianapolis and asked "If they EVER come here will you please take me???" She even offered to find a way to pay for her own ticket. We saw they were coming to South Bend, IN which according to Mapquest is a little over 2.5 hours away from our house. But it's on a Monday night and with work and school we just thought it would be too hard. Then a week or so ago Mark asked me something in passing about when and where they were going to be. I think it stewed in both our brains for a few days and then Saturday afternoon we made the stealthy decision to order tickets online because "she can sleep on the way home" and Mark could take a vacation day if he needed.

We kept it a secret from her. Today the tickets came in the mail. When Mark got home from work he handed the envelope to Katie and said he had a nasty paper cut bugging him so could she open it for him. She did and tried to hand it back without looking inside. He told her to pull whatever it was out of the envelope. She did and said "It's tickets." I said "Tickets?! To what???" The following pictures (taken while I was "adjusting the light settings on my camera because I think they're messed up" heehee) tell how excited she was far better than I ever could write it!