Surprising Little J

When we were visiting Erik's sister in Western Minnesota we were less than two hours from Sioux Centre, Iowa.

Jessica Hailley, my beautiful niece, is currently in her freshman year at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. E and I decided to make the short trek down to surprise Jessica with a little visit. We left in the early afternoon assuming that she would have afternoon classes.

We arrived in Sioux Center at around 3:30pm and went to purchase flowers for J. We rolled into Dordt at around 4:00pm and J's dorm happened to be the first building we saw. Her room also happened to be the first door we walked passed, but her room as empty.

We somehow ran into one of her roommates who informed us that she had class until 5:00pm. So we sat outside and wasted time until her class was supposed to be finished. J didn't end up coming back to her dorm until around 5:30 -- by that time I was fairly antsy.

I saw her walking toward her dorm and were were a couple hundred meters away so I started speed-walking/half running towards her. I called her name and she turned around completely confused. She was squinting and said, "did you just say Jess?" and I just kept excitedly walking towards her.

She finally recognized me and screeched "what?!?!?" and started running towards me with open arms. We were both in tears before we reached each other and then we laughed and cried and cried some more. It was wonderful.

I was struck by how beautiful and grown up Jessica is. I still can't believe my niece is old enough to be in college. And old enough to move halfway across another country. Not just old enough, but independent enough. But she is.

It was a wonderful little reunion and I am so glad we made the little trip down. I have said it before and I will say it again, I love surprises -- both surprising and being surprised.

More on our little visit later.