A good day...

Though Mother's Day has memory landmines, it was a good day today. Saturday two beautiful flower arranagements arrived, one of the Malaysian Bonciminos and one from sweet friends, Shelly and Jackie. Awesome.

Magically, this morning all the kids slept in til 7:30 giving Pete plenty of time to cook a fabulous breakfast for Katie and me. Katie and the kids got me a brand new bike for Mother's Day. I have been bikeless since mine was stolen during the time Katie was living in Chicago and had been using mine. So now I have a bright shiny new blue bike. Yippee!

Once we arrived at church, I ran into a new member of my small group at Grief Support. This dear mom just lost her son three weeks ago. We just hugged for a long time and I whispered 'Happy Mother's Day" into her ear; it was that knowing her pain today and being able to connect that I recognized a special God appointment at just the right time.

And at the main service we had a neat surprise. Weeks ago I received an email that Willow was looking for "Mom/Grandma" pics. I forwarded maybe six different photos and then forgot about it. In a church of 20000 attenders, I doubted any of mine would be used. Not so...not just one but four of them showed up on the giant screen during a photo montage accompanying a song. I think the twins were really the hook. The neatest of all and shown right at the end was the one of my mom on a mini motorcycle taken just weeks before she died. I think all of our family got teary seeing that.

The rest of the day included a family barbecue with Pete's side of the family and nieces and nephew, Phil. Lots of laughs, good food and more family. A phone call from Greg who is currently in the Middle East, all totaled made for a sweet day. And now, we are packing for tomorrow's trip to Las Vegas, my annual business conference. Shingles, not withstanding, we intend to have a relaxing getaway. Perfect timing...