My Mother's Day 2014

My Mother's Day started a couple of days before Sunday. I went to the door and there was a package from my daughter who lives in DC. She knows that I love to read and especially nature books...so she ordered a couple of new books from Amazon. "Chasing the Rose" by Andrea di Robilant, and "Bird Sense" by Tim Birkhead. She and I had a long phone call on Sunday morning filled with so many memories. Then I got an ECard from my son. He said that instead of flowers or gift card he wanted to spend a day with me at the Nicholas Conservatory and Gardens in Rockford ...then out for lunch or dinner. I talked to him for a long time too...on Sunday and we made plans to go in June.
Joe and I went to Mass on Saturday night and then he surprised me by stopping at the new Chinese restaurant in Byron. Even though I'm not his mom....he gave me an Amazon gift card and then later in the afternoon on Sunday... we went to Maxson's Paddleboat Restaurant in Oregon, Il. We were early... so we went for a drive through the White Pines Forest. The tall pines lined both sides of the road and the grounds were covered with May flowers. Then we went back to Oregon and went on the other side of the river and parked at a park where lots of people fish. There were only a few people fishing...but someone else was fishing....the flock of Pelicans was there.I really enjoyed this...watching them fly and then dive into the water and catch a fish. There were probably 30 to 50 Pelicans. Beautiful big white birds all swimming in a little bay under the dam.
After watching them for a while...we drove to the restaurant, where they had a wonderful buffet for Mom's day. The restaurant is on the Rock River and has windows all around the eating area. We could have eaten on the boat, but I had done that before and rain was predicted for that afternoon....so we ate inside.The restaurant had just recently been sold and this was their first Mother's Day. The restaurant is big and was full of families yesterday. The buffet was full of breakfast items, eggs Benedict, custom omelets, sausage gravy and biscuits, and then ham, roast beef, fried chicken, shrimp, meat loaf, green beans, potatoes, salad and the fixins, two dessert tables, with pies, brownies, puddings, cookies, oh just so much food. It was delicious.
After our meal it started to rain, so we headed for home. We stopped and picked up a movie to watch.All in all, the day I was dreading was very nice.I was kept busy from dawn to night. I did think about what was going on last year at this time, but my family made sure I had a good Mom's Day.
Balisha