Mother's Day

Thank you everyone for the wonderful Mother's Day!  It actually started a couple of days early when my sweetheart came home from work with these beautiful flowers.

Then we got to spend Saturday honoring my dad's birthday with a trip to the temple.  On the drive there we decided to figure out the relationship between ourselves and the family member for whom we did the work that day.  Mine was pretty simple - my great-great-grandmother's niece, or my first cousin four times removed.  Wayne's was pretty convoluted - his wife's grandmother's sister's father-in-law's half-brother's brother-in-law.  Did you follow that?  Anyway, as I've mentioned before and I'll mention again, I love my in-laws of in-laws and I'm sure Charles doesn't mind who does his temple work.

Sunday morning I came downstairs to two beautiful young ladies busily preparing muffins.
They were delicious.  We're so glad Michelle paid attention in her cooking class last semester! We had an early breakfast so we could be ready just in case the traffic cooperated and Steven was able to get to the house with the computer before we left for church.  Traffic didn't cooperate; we left home at 9:17 and Steven logged onto Skype at 9:20.  However, Elder Chatwin was able to Skype with his family, and we were just fine with our phone call in the afternoon/evening after church.  Elder Whitaker is doing great.  We appreciate his dedication and testimony.

Once again Wayne was in charge of the ward's Mother's Day gift*, and they went with the tried-and-true little box of chocolates.  This year he had the brilliant idea of getting the Priest's Quorum to help!  So, for their Mutual activity last week they assembled the boxes and cut the ribbon, then filled them and tied them and set them aside in the bishop's office.

It was a wonderful day.  We got to talk with both of our own mothers, and all of our children.  Family is precious and we're so grateful for each member of ours.  And we hope you all had a wonderful day as well!

*Just in case you're wondering, the other option that had great success in the past was an individual rose placed in a mini-vial and tied with a ribbon.**  While plants are wonderful, to a lot of women - me included - they're a source of guilt because it's just another thing to take care of, and we feel badly when they die, not to mention it's difficult to carry a plant around during two more hours of church with no available hands.  I imagine he'll be doing this again in the future, so if you have any awesome ideas feel free to pass them along!

** Be sure to place the bucket of prepared roses out of reach of small children who might decide to throw up all over them as you walk out the door to church.  Speaking from experience here - one of my more memorable Mother's Days!