April Fools kidnapping

I had the most surprising and exciting April Fools Day of my life yesterday.

Kristi showed up at the office as a total surprise about 2:30 p.m. and said we were leaving. She had worked it out with Scott via Crystal that I could get out of work for the rest of the day, and that I didn't have to cover anything. She also had Mike alert the home group guys that I wouldn't be hosting that night.

I had no idea where we were headed, just that we'd be gone for the rest of the evening. I tried a few guesses, but couldn't really nail anything down. We stopped at her brother Brian's office, in Atlanta, to pick up what I later learned were tickets. And by the time we left the parking lot, I figured out that we were going to the Sabres-Thrashers game.

Brian's company, Autotrader.com, has a suite at the Thrashers' games complete with an upper level parking pass. So we got there in plenty of time to get some chicken nachos, and watch all of warmups from the suite, which was parallel to the faceoff dots in the Sabres' offensive zone for the first and third periods.

It was a great game until the end. About half the crowd was Sabres fans, and The Buffalo News blog said it felt like a home game. The Sabres scored two power play goals, but had a costly giveaway at the Atlanta blueline, which turned into a breakaway goal for the Thrashers with 29.9 seconds left in overtime. It was disappointing, but didn't ruin a great spontaneous trip.

Kristi had planned it for several weeks, and said she was worried that she, or someone else, might spill the beans. The best line, though, came from Dad, whose response when I explained everything was, "Holy geez!"

Of course, the trip has extra significance since Kristi earned a AAA sweatshirt by picking me up in Anderson, driving to Atlanta, taking me back to Anderson (I drove so she could take a nap), and then drove back to Athens last night. The kicker, though, is she had to leave Athens at 5:30 a.m. to make a meeting for work in south Georgia this morning. (The work trip came up this week).

Lately, we've turned holidays into trips to sporting events. On MLK Day, we went to the Gwinnett Gladiators, and now this on April Fools Day. And by the way, the Cubs play in Atlanta on my birthday. Exciting, huh?!