Happy Retirement Mom!

On Memorial Day weekend, we had a surprise retirement party for my mom. My mom has been a nurse since she was about 12 years old, or at least that what if feels like to her. She's spent the last 22 years at Mountain Home Public Schools, making sure kids were immunized, dealing with sour bellies, "she hit me on the playground", and (this is the kicker for me) the possibility of a kid coming to see her and throwing up everywhere OR being called to the playground and seeing a broken bone. I'm a nurse, and I can handle some C-R-A-Z-Y gross stuff. Wounds, poop, shots, bring it on. Broken bones and puking not in a toilet or bucket-not my thing. Go mom! She was crazy good at her job, but it was time to hang up the nurse's hat and put on the golfing, hiking, vacationing, and sitting on the porch reading a book hat.

We all went to Mtn. Home under the ruse of wanting to hang out for a nice holiday weekend, do a little sprinkler action, shopping, and MAYBE (if we had time) a picnic at the lake.

Anthony taking on the dare to walk slowly through the sprinkler

Nice Papa, going through the sprinkler with Rylan

A good shot of my nephew, Anthony, by his 3 year old sister. She loves a good camera.

One of my new fave pics of Ry. He badly wants to jump. Its his newest endeavor, and someday he'll get it. This is his pre-jump pose.

So, on Sunday, we sent Rob and my brother-in-law, Clay, out to the lake to "secure" a picnic table. Little did Mom know that we'd already reserved the giant pavilion. Really, Clay and Rob were buying last minute items at Dollar Tree and tying balloons to the side of the pavilion. So, we get out to the park, and Clay and Rob are sitting at this awful picnic table next to the lake bathrooms, and Mom is all trying to be nice, since they had spent two hours "holding" a table for us, but she's all "why aren't they at that vacant table with the pretty view of the lake, those bathrooms kinda smell." SURPRISE! We turned her around and she had a big pavilion and friends and balloons and a SUH-WEET cake.

The grill-meister

Cute little Zoe Jane

Somehow, children are able to spot the baby whisperer, grandma types. Ry was all over it. Check out how pitiful he's being here. He won't sit in our lap long enough to read a Dr. Suess book, he sat in Cindy's lap for like, an hour.

A close up of the cake. Everything on it was edible. I've done two posts in a row of crazy good cakes, and keep in mind that I'm pregnant and cake is yummy. But, I am in awe of this art. And, in another life, like when I don't have grubby hands #1 in the house and grubby hands #2 on the way, I'd like to try my hand at it. My coworker did this cake. Rob and I dragged in from Little Rock in 100 degree heat, then we snuck it out to a friend's house to hide it, then they brought it 30 miles out to the lake for us. Its amazing it still looked good.

Group pic (notice pitiful baby is still on Cindy's lap, with drink and balloon)

And the night was capped off with some excellent firefly catching. Ry didn't know what the heck they were doing so he just chased Anthony and Zoe around and had a great time doing that.

A little cuddling amongst the cousins. Ry was trying to "share" (read: steal) Zoe's blanket. She has a firm grasp though.

PS-a little sidenote about my abilities as a writer: spellcheck has informed me that I don't know how to spell the word Surprise or Pavilion. Maybe I need to go back to the spelling bee......