Mother’s Day 2011

What an amazing Mother’s Day!  We drove to Orlando to meet up with my parents, Chuck, Traci and the kids and Nancy and Gail.  Everyone being together in that relaxed setting (no one felt that they were entertaining or had to worry over things in their home) was perfect.  On Friday night for dinner it was just me, Chris, Nancy and Conner and we went to this amazing Italian restaurant and laughed through the entire meal!  There was a balloon artist there and we kept making jokes about him making me a Buzz Lightyear balloon since Buzz and I have a “thing going”.  That “thing” is a reference back to when Dad and I did the Disney Marathon in 2003 – as we were getting pictures with all the different characters Buzz was seriously hitting on me – I’m not sure why, but it’s a compliment to catch the eye of an action hero!
By Saturday mid morning everyone had arrived and we got in some quality pool time and then went to Downtown Disney to walk around and take Lance to the huge Lego store (he is a Lego fanatic!).  We grilled out for dinner, had birthday cake for Chuck and then played team Sequence for most of the night.  I just love playing games with family and friends and while I was not successful at getting everyone to play Pictionary, they promised we will do it next time!  A sweet thing that was going on during the day that I didn’t know about is the boys had taken the car to the store to get Mother’s Day cards.  It meant so much to me to know they picked it out themselves and signed it by writing things that they wanted to thank me for.
We woke up Sunday and found Chuck’s church service on the internet and sat around and listened to that – it’s not quite the same as being there in person – but what a gift that our family shares in a deep love for the Lord!  Then it was time for family pictures!!!!!!!!  Although the full group photo taken with the self timer didn’t turn out so great – the others did.  Chuck and crew then got on the road and after some more time down by the pool and some fun underwater photos we went to a really nice restaurant (Crave) for an early dinner and then hung out for awhile before getting on the road to come home.

The focus of motherhood for me changes from year to year.  In the early days the focus was the constant care and nurturing required of me as a Mom, that focus shifted to more of a teacher and cheerleader as they entered school and team sports.  As they began to mature into young teenagers the focus was on trying to make sure these young men respected God, their family, themselves, women, and their communities.  Of course, there aren’t always clear demarcations between one stage and another, and some things have been a focus since the day they were born.  I cherish my role as a Mom.  I can’t imagine living a life without children.  I am proud of them, and excited for all that lies ahead for them.

Here are some fun pictures from the weekend.

We tried quite a few times to get a picture where we are all smiling – but I wasn’t very good at not holding my breath under water. Chase thought that was pretty funny!

It wouldn’t be a family gathering without games!

Lance loves legos so you can imagine how much time we spent at the lego store in Downtown Disney!

Here are some pictures from our family photo session!

Using the self timer on the top of a trash can produces interesting results!