surprise to us!

levi's cousin threw us an amazing engagement party last saturday...complete with the best surprise ever.

the back story: levi's dad lives in oregon, and levi hasn't seen him in 4 or 5 years. none of us ever have enough money to visit each other. so that also means that i've never even met him! we assumed that i wouldn't meet bill until our wedding.

we were wrong!

one of levi's relatives found out that bill wasn't able to make it to our engagement party, so they gave him the money to drive down and visit us! and he brought levi's step-sister, riley, with him. (his step-mom had to work and stay at home with all their pets.)

this was all a total surprise to us.

when we showed up at robin & david's house (levi's cousins), robin took me upstairs, saying she wanted to show me something. i walked into the master bedroom and saw a 12 year old girl pointing a camera at me. confused, i turned to my right, and there was bill! i immediately started crying and threw myself at him to hug him.

and, of course, i wanted to show him the ring that he bought for levi's mom so many years ago.

the plan was for bill to walk me down the stairs to surprise levi. he was so shocked when he saw us. and guess what? he started crying too. more tears all around.

it was perfect and amazing. we were able to spend the whole night with them and all day monday. they were even able to meet my mom and sister. we were really sad to see them go yesterday morning. little riley started crying, and the rest of us quickly followed suit. hopefully, january comes quickly.

(this is riley. isn't she cute?? we took them on the queen mary to show them where we got engaged.)

i love bill and riley and am so grateful to be able to call them family. i can't wait to meet the rest of levi's family!