We tell the parents.....

So, we’ve now broken the big news to both the Gough and Brule parents. Here’s a summary of how it went down:

The Gough’s

Most people reading this don’t know that my parents have been sailing on their boat (the S.S. My Inheritance) for the past 6 months. They had the boat trucked to Virginia from Kingston where they set sail down the east coast to Miami and then across to the Bahamas. We drove them to Virginia in late October and we met up with them near Albany, NY this past weekend to bring them rigging to allow them to bring down their mast so they can get back to Lake Ontario via the Erie Canal.

So, in our mighty rented Chevy Uplander (the one that looks like a hippopotamus), Jenny, Kathryn and I drove 5 ½ hours to see them. We actually hadn’t planned to tell them until they returned because I had this feeling Mom would tell my dad to sail the boat home himself as she’s want to stow away in the Uplander.

We waited until we were leaving when we approached dad. I showed him the ultrasound picture and asked if this would mean mom would want to come home with us. He looked at it and was either stunned or, due to a lack of glasses, couldn’t make out what it was. Regardless, hugs all around. Then mom came along and we used the same method to tell her. She never said a word….she just smiled and cried.

Better yet, my sister was in the washroom so we she returned…we did it all again! For someone who claims to be so good “picking up on these things”, she failed pretty badly. Anyway, it made for interesting conversation on the return 5 ½ hour drive….as we did it all in one day.

The Brûlé’s

We wanted to wait until Corie was home from university for the summer to tell Jenny’s folks. Corie will soon be heading to Washington D.C. to intern so she wanted to be part of the fun. We used the story of taking Corie out to dinner to celebrate her internship. Corie felt it was only fitting that we went to Baton Rouge (the same restaurant we told her the news back in February).

After we had been seated and ordered, Jenny admitted to her mom that we had “ulterior motives” as to why we brought them there. She then gave her mom the (now famous) ultrasound picture. Joan then asked if it was Jenny’s (which makes us wonder A: What does she think Corie has been up to or B: Does she think we carry around ultrasound pictures of other people’s kids?). When we explained it was in fact ours, she got pretty excited. When she found out how long we kept it from her….she said….and I quote “You mean I could have been happy all this time?”

I can’t make this stuff up.

Jenny’s dad was, well, stunned by it all. In his defense, they keep the restaurant pitch dark and he probably couldn’t see a thing as he forgot his glasses. However, a manly hand shake later on in the parking lot let me know he approved and a hug for Jenny from both parents.