Happy Mother's Day!

A few words on mothers and motherhood:

• "A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." -- Dorothy Canfield Fisher

• "By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class." -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

• "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." -- Tenneva Jordan

And the best...

• "Sometimes when I look at all my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have stayed a virgin.'" -- Lillian Carter, at the 1980 Democratic Convention, where her son was nominated for a second term as US President

My mom is represented in each of these quotes. With late-night calls from a crying daughter, she always says the right thing to pick me back up and get me back on track. She's proud of each of my accomplishments and has allowed me to be myself from day 1. Warts and all, she loves me through and through. It's a hard job! :)

I love you, Mom!














This is 1 of my favorites - Mom, the winker (notice the chocolate owl winking...Mom didn't just bust out the wink in the middle of Harrod's completely randomly!).

A great weekend in wine country

Me and Jake, on the balcony at one of our wine tastings. Jake is getting married in July, and he's such a good friend to me. I count him as one of my work blessings. :)

















Doug, Kristen, and Jeff on the same balcony. Doug is a total goof...I'm sure you never would've guessed, huh? These guys are awesome, and we had such a good time sitting here, sharing a bottle of wine and having great conversation.

















Kristen, Doug, and I were the residents of the backseat in our touring-mobile. We let Jeff and Doug do the navigating and we just enjoyed the scenery. And laughed at Doug.

















This winery hosts a Sunday brunch each weekend - $19.95 all you can eat. They had 10 different kinds of eggs benedict, 15 different kinds of crepes, 20 kinds of condiments to put in an omelette, fried oysters, mimosas, wine, champagne, desserts, etc. SOOO yummy. And it was so understated. The food was amazing, but here we sat, in the middle of this warehouse filled with aging wine barrels. So great!





















And here's Jake, our resident social coordinator, showing off our Saturday evening activity: card games and lots and lots of beer. Mind you, there were only 5 of us...and there was no more beer on Sunday morning. It was a good time.

Happy Birthday, Seth!

Happy birthday to a great big brother, father, husband, son, grandson, and friend! I hope you have a fabulous day!

(He's pictured here with his daughter, Brady).