Love is Greater Than …Life through a lens of love and hope

…or, Operation AwesomeSauce. Total success.

First, some thanks… Ryanne and I want to thank Todd and Craig at St. Johns for letting me get off work a few days early, we also want to thanks our co-conspirators, Grandma Brechbill and my sister Melissa. Gregg also knew the details.

So, around Thanksgiving Ryanne and I started toying around with the idea of possibly coming home a little early for Christmas. We always had figured that we wouldn’t be able to leave ABQ until at the very earliest, late on Christmas Eve. But then we found out we wouldn’t be having any contemporary worship experiences (what I’m in charge of) on Christmas Eve, so I asked my supervisor, Todd, if I could possibly leave a little early. Ryanne and I hadn’t talked to either of our families about this yet, because we figured we’d wait until we knew one way or another.

A few days later, we found out that we could leave on the 23rd. Up until now everyone in our families believed we’d be arriving back in Toledo on the 26th. Somewhere along the way, Ryanne and I came up with the idea of letting our families believe we’d be in on the 26th, but actually drive back and arrive on the 25th. Then, we were blessed with some airline tickets, so we were able to leave and arrive on the 23rd. We invited into the know a few important people, and the plan was set. We consistently updated our Facebook and Twitter statuses with things that would play into our plan, we made sure our schedules wouldn’t clash with where my or Ryanne’s parents would be at any time, and miraculously it all worked out. During our travel day, I made sure to stay off twitter/facebook, instead I scheduled “fake” posts to update throughout the day using a service called HootSuite. We hid out at my sisters house Wednesday evening, and finished some Christmas shopping Thursday morning at stores a little out of town where we’d have less chance of running into anyone.

We surprised my family first, at a my mom’s side of the family’s extended family Christmas party. To say my mom was shocked would be an understatement. Later, we surprised Ryanne’s mom at her church’s Christmas Eve service where she sings in the choir. Again, shock and awe =).

So again, thanks to everyone that helped us pull this off. We’ll be here in Toledo until January 1st, if anyone would like to get together, please let us know!