Mother's Day 2017

Today was Mother’s Day and it was a really nice Mother’s Day for me. Mother’s Day actually started at 4 a.m. for me! That’s when I woke up filled with so much love and gratitude for my children. I just love my kids SO much! They really do mean everything to me. I am grateful to have them in my life. I went into their rooms and kissed them both then I sent Trevor a text message saying “I love you.” Then I hung out in the living room to drink some water then I went back to bed.

Jesse made me breakfast this morning: Pop Tarts. I enjoyed them! He also had a really sweet art project that he made for me for Mother’s Day and he gave it to me this morning. It was just so sweet and melted my heart. He also gave me chocolates.

Later, Jesse made a Minecraft project for Mother’s Day. He does this every year. He is really good at Minecraft and I thought it was awesome.

I also received another Mother’s Day gift from Trevor and my husband later in the day: It was a really nice candles. I love candles and collect them so I was happy to add this one to the many I already have. 

Jesse also made me lunch today but hubby gave me some of the rice that he cooked too. I ate that with the PB&J sandwich from Jesse. I also drank tea with that lunch. It was yummy!

I spent some time doing things for myself – reading articles online, spending time on my personal Twitter account, updating my website and finishing a book I have been reading – but I also spent time with the kids. We hung out on the couch watching TV and we also went out to do a bit of shopping. We get a free Redbox movie tonight so we’re going to watch that movie and have popcorn, too.

It’s been a very pleasant day. I really feel so blessed to have my kids and I am glad to share another Mother’s Day with them. They really do mean a lot to me and I hope that when they are older they will look back and recall happy memories from their childhood. My goal is to raise my kids to be good people but I also want to give them the best kind of life that I can. I want them to have a childhood they won’t have to recover from in adulthood and I hope that has been working out for them so far.

Petanque

The other day, Trevor told m something: The French class that Trevor is in is now playing in a game called petanque. In fact, the school which Trevor attends is one of only three schools in Oregon which play this game.

When I learned about this, I had to smile. I mentioned that I knew about petanque – because there’s a scene of children playing it in one of my novels! Well, it’s the very ancient version of the game and it was played by Gaulish children. But, yeah, sam game! The one Trevor plays is the modern version.

After learning about this, I became excited. I wanted to see Trevor playing this game! Honestly, I thought Trevor was done with sports forever. But then THIS happened! So I guess NOT!

Anyway, today was a day for another game. And THIS particular game was to be played at another school!

The problem was, I didn’t know how to get to that school. I spent hours going over routes to the school on Google Maps. My husband coached me on how to get there. And Trevor also was my navigator – pointing out which way to go as I drove.

Even after all that, though, I still got lost! (I missed the exit on the freeway.) It took a while, but we got back on track and Trevor once again took over in the role of “navigator” to show me which way to go.

Unfortunately, I ended up getting Trevor to the game late and Trevor was unable to play on the regular team. I felt really miserable about that. I sat there moping and thinking I should get the Worst Mother of the Year award. Even though Trevor kept insisting it was okay. I still felt bad! However, after another team finished playing, they invited both Trevor AND Jesse to play. Cool! I was excited about this but even more excited that Jesse got to participate too.

That’s right, folks. Today my son learned how to play petanque. He had fun playing it too!

Trevor and some of the others (including Trevor’s French teacher) gave Jesse tips on how to play and showed him how to stand inside the ring and how to toss the ball. It took a while before he caught on.

Then it started to rain. First it was a light drizzle, stopped, rained, stopped, then there was a huge freaking downpour! And I was sitting there watching as everybody kept continuing to play petanque. I had my coat but no hood or umbrella so Trevor was kind enough to remove the jacket and drape it over me, covering my head. I protested at first – I didn’t want to be fussed over – but Trevor insisted on it so I accepted and said thank you.

They finished out the game and then we all went to where there was a tented area with a table of food. As everybody ate the snacks, I hung around under the tent just to get out of the rain!

Despite getting soaked in the rain – and despite getting lost – it was a fun time and we were all smiles as we left. We all had a great time! I took as many pictures as I was able to in between the episodes of rain. I am happy I got to see Trevor play petanque, happy that Jesse learned it AND that he got to play too, and happy that I was able to get some pictures! Yay for petanque! I can’t wait to go to the next game!

 

 

Pictures from my walk

Today I was finally able to do something that I have not done for a while: I went for a walk. I only planned to walk for 30 minutes but it ended up lasting for 50 minutes! That was pretty awesome. Anyway, I had not gone for a walk for some time because I was sick with a cough for a while there. I think I had that cough for 3 weeks. Fortunately, it was not as bad as the cough I had last year (and I hope to never get sick with THAT ever again!!), but I was coughing on and off a lot. Also, the cough was not as deep or violent as the cough from last year (those coughs literally kept throwing me forward!). I have been drinking ginseng tea but I’m not sure if it will help keep the cough away. Still, it’s good tea to drink!

Another reason why I have not gone for a walk is because of such a shortage of free time for it. I have been REALLY busy lately. But I am working on managing my time better and hopefully I can get my schedule on track to include a daily walk.

I saw a few interesting things on my walk today – a discarded business card, two magnets promoting a local event and a sock – but THESE were the things that made me grab my cell phone and snap pictures.

Also, I like taking pictures of flowers.

Jesse's first day of swimming lessons

Today was Jesse’s first day of his very first swimming lessons! He was really excited about being able to go to swimming lessons today. I have tried to get him signed up for swimming lessons in the past but I was always too late; the classes were all filled up by the time I started looking. Every year that I tried! This year was better. Got him signed up and today he started.

Unfortunately, he was 5 minutes late for class. Parking was TERRIBLE! Ugh! I think they need a larger parking lot! Well, it still worked out okay.

His swim coach is really nice. I was glad to see that there weren’t a ton of kids in his group. There were other swim classes spread around the pools but they all had ample space. Jesse was glad that his lessons were at an indoor pool. There were only four kids in Jesse’s group and they all were well-behaved.

For the first class, they practiced things like climbing in and out of the pool, floating and jumping in. It was a very basic and easy class. It only lasted for 30 minutes so there was only so much that they could cover.

Still, Jesse had a lot of fun. He LOVES his swimming class! He wasn’t afraid of the pool at all (though he was afraid to jump off the miniature diving board) and he got along with everybody. He also handled showering and changing in the boy’s locker room well too. Plus, there was plenty of space for parents to sit and watch their kids.

After his class, Jesse was all smiles and he was excited. He said it was “amazing!” and he looks forward to going back again. I am just glad that he will finally learn how to swim!

Here are pictures that I took: