Mother's Day

My three children:

Kelsey, who has a super-sensitive heart for the poor and downtrodden of this world

Erin, who is my driven, hard-working middle child

Drew, whose exuberance for life is unmatched

The three of you make my whole life a celebration, not just Mother's Day.  I am blessed beyond words to have you in my life.  I thank God for the privilege of being your mom.

Lunch in Galena

Almost every time we drive thru Galena and pass the sign for the state historic site of President Grant's home, I think we should stop there sometime.  This afternoon the girls and I took a road trip out to Galena to have lunch with my parents.  We werea bit ahead of schedule, so I thought we'd finally take a moment to stop and take a peek at Grant's home.  We didn't have time to take a full tour of the inside of the house, but I learned some fascinating facts about the Grants while we were walking around:

*Grant married a woman (Julia Boggs Dent) whose family owned slaves, and it made his parents so mad they did not attend his wedding

*When Grant returned to Galena as a war hero in 1865, the house was presented to him as a gift from wealthy, prominent citizens as part of the town's celebration.

*Grant's wife was the first president's wife to be known as "the First Lady."

After stretching our legs on the Grant's grounds, we hopped back into the car to finish the drive to the restaurant.

We enjoyed a quick lunch with my parents - we truly don't get to see them often enough.  As we parted ways, Dad and I remarked to each other that we should get together for lunch in Galena more often, and I agreed.

While road tripping it with my girls to have lunch with my parents made this a great day, the parting gift my mom gave me was worth more than gold:  19 pounds of the world's best sausage.  My stash had run out, and Mom found a way to replace it.  There honestly is nothing better than sausage made the old-fashioned way from my home-town butcher.  He doesn't make it very often anymore, but Mom talked him into making a batch just for our family.

Priceless!

Industrially Pierced

Late last summer, Kelsey asked if she could have an industrial piercing thru the cartilage in her ear.  Knowing that was a pretty big step, I told her she needed to wait until her 17th birthday, and if she still wanted it then, that would be fine.

About a week before her birthday, Kelsey came running up to me and said, "OH!  Now I remember what I want for my birthday - I want my industrial piercing!"

Up to this point, Kelsey's gone to Claire's for her ear piercings, but they don't handle industrials.  This meant that Kelsey had to order her bar thru a tattoo parlor.  She waited over a month for it to arrive.  They called this morning, and Kelsey was so excited.  Baird accompanied her, and had the "privilege" of watching them stick a hypodermic needle thru her ear in two places and then insert the bar.  "Yes," said Kelsey, "It hurt.  ALOT."  But she says it's totally worth it.  She loves her new look.

And she left the tattoo parlor with just the bar - no ink.

3-Peat

The Awana Games/Sparks-a-Rama was today and wow, was the pressure on for Baird and Drew!  For the past two years, Baird has coached the boys TnT team to a first-place finish.  Almost as soon as they held the banner high last year, Drew looked at Baird and said, "Threepeat!"

The boys have been practicing for weeks now, and their hard work paid off.  They took first place in the first event and honestly never looked back.  More importantly, they displayed good conduct the entire time.

CONGRATS GUYS!

Early Spring Time Warp

Spring is on steroids this year.  Normally we get a day, maybe two, during the month of March when the air is warm and the temps stretch into the 70s. Then the Canadian winds invade again, the temperatures fall back into the 40s and 50s, and then the rains begin in earnest. No so this year.  We're currently in the midst of an unheard-of heat wave with temps well into the 80s, several days in a row.  Because of all this heat, the spring flowers have been in fast-forward mode.  Take my magnolia, for example.  Last night it had full buds but no blossoms.  This morning, it looked like this:

All this in just eight hours, a process which usually takes weeks!  The flowers are running about six weeks ahead of schedule, and it has put me in a bit of a time warp.  Here we are in mid-March, but when I look around outside, it looks like May.  It's all a bit weird.  But I love spring, and I'm glad it's sprung early this year!

A Sweet Response

 For the past couple of years, Kelsey has been working hard to raise awareness about the terrible working conditions in cocoa fields.  She recently wrote to her favorite fair trade chocolate company, and told them how happy she was that they are fair trade, and that they offer milk chocolate.  Wow, was she ever excited today when she got this in the mail:

Basketball Rookie

Drew's been a casual basketball player for several years, but this year he asked if he could play organized ball.  He landed on the same park district team as about half of the Irving fifth grade boys, and they've been having a very successful season so far.  Honestly, I had no idea Drew's as good as he is - he sunk a three-pointer today!

Playoffs begin next week - our own little version of March Madness.