becksolson

Most Monday nights you can find our entire family at home watching WWE Monday Night RAW.

There are very few Monday's (and usually Tuesday's) that Emmitt doesn't come flying in to the living room just before 7 p.m. to rip the remote out of anyone's hand to flip the channel. We all moan and groan and say we don't want to watch it and then I look around the room a few minutes later and there we all are staring at the T.V.

Two months ago I had an email, text and a coworker tell me that WWE Monday Night Raw tickets were available for pre-sale in Minnesota. I quickly text Barrett, tried to convince him we needed $500 ring-side seats and settled on lower level, nobody behind us seats.

Next up...keep the surprise from the boys for two months. Fast forward to Monday morning. The boys are up and getting ready to head to Duluth for Emmitt's ortho appointment (braces are off!) and we tell them to pack an overnight bag. We are heading to the cities to have dinner with the Uncles and off to Wisconsin to meet new baby Clara.

We pull into a random parking lot that has a GIANT "Event Parking" sign and a few random people wearing WWE t-shirts. Nothing. They have zero clue what is happening. I toss Emmitt both of his WWE shirts and tell him he should change. Still nothing. All he thinks is we're having dinner and heading to uncles to watch RAW on his giant flat screen.

We legit walked past a WWE Staff sign. Parker busts me trying to record with my phone and gets suspicious. He whispers in my ear if there is a surprise for Emmitt tonight. I just wink and then lie to his face and say no.

They still think at this point we're walking towards the Excel but that we're crossing the street to the restaurants and waiting for uncle to text us.

We didn't totally plan out how we were going to tell them but as we're approaching the entrance the loud speaker makes an announcement and that was it. Emmitt did not react how we were thinking he would. How do you ever really know how people are going to respond? He heard it, hugged Barrett first, went to hug Parker assuming he was in on it. Parker awkwardly pushes him away and says he didn't know anything and then he comes to me. Which at this point I'm bawling for an unknown reason. I think it's because he didn't freak and scream and jump like we anticipated but that he was grateful. #worthit

Still getting used to that new smile but love how genuine it is.

Once we got inside we walked around the Excel, found our seats and saw this random Fox 9 News station where there was a very short line to do some announcing. They have a script of lines they want you to say. Emmitt asks the guy if he can do his own thing.