Magnificent Mother's Day

Mother's Day was on Sunday and it was really quite awesome.  It started off with me having to eat my words.

Let me explain.

All week I had been saying to people: "the weather on Mother's Day is always cold and miserable.  I always have these grand visions of spending the day outside with the kids, only to be stuck inside all day because it's cold and miserable."

Well, here is me, eating my words.

The weather on Mother's day was pretty much spectacular.  Sunny and warm and perfect.

We spent the morning cleaning up the back yard, and pulling out the patio furniture.

Then, per the kids request, we headed down to the beach.  Now here's where we had to put our feet down.  They wanted to put their bathing suits on.  We refused.  They whined and complained, and we explained that the temperature of the lake was somewhere slightly above frigid.  They pouted for a bit but then agreed. 

Aidan however, was not quite as accommodating.  "But I want to paddle in the kayak!" he protested.  Again, we explained the nature of things when one is coming out of an extremely cold, frozen winter and the effect of ice on lake temperature. 

"But I'll be IN the kayak!"  he continued to argue.

"What happens if you fall OUT of the kayak?" We responded.

This went on for a little bit before he finally agreed NOT to bring the kayak with us.

And as per usual, when we go to the beach, the kids have a blast:


It was awesome just to sit there and soak up the sun, and the warmth, and the awesomeness of the day.  The kids could have stayed there all day.

But we brought them home so we could have some lunch and hang out before we headed out for dinner. 

For dinner we took the ferry across to the US - which the kids (minus Marin who passed out in her car seat) thought was pretty awesome.  We met up with some friends, and all 17 of us sat down for a fairly loud and raucous meal.  The kids (for the most part) entertained themselves, while the grown ups chatted.

But of course everything can't be perfect.  I had just pulled my phone out to take a picture of the kids playing on the patio (the big kids were entertaining the little girls) when Marin wiped out.  Talk about perfect timing!!

Marin down!!

After dinner we went next door to the Candy Shoppe, where the kids went nuts over the huge assortment of candy.  They each got to pick one thing, and their choices were rather, ahem, interesting.

a 27 inch gummy 'snake'

some type of monstrous Laffy taffy

But we did manage to take a fairly good picture of me with the kids (something that never happens)

 

And that pretty much wrapped up our Mother's Day.