Mother's Day & Four Generations

For the first time in 6 years, we are home for Mother's Day. . . and it was the perfect opportunity to snap a shot of four generations of the Hughes clan. Great-grandpa J.C. (79), Roger (58), Russ (37) and Hayden (19 months).

We gathered at the home of Roger's folks - as always - and enjoyed a lunch of grilled hamburgers with all the trimmings. The afternoon was spent visiting, playing "Moon", and enjoying the spring weather of a beautiful day, with plenty of room for the kids to be kids. Roger's sister, Judy, was 'in charge' of providing the dessert - and her Pecan Sandie pudding was the hit of the day (although the home-made chocolate chip cookies ran a close second). No left overs to be had of it, and everyone insisted that it was a 'must have' for any future get-togethers. I'll have to get her recipe and share it on my blog.

We hit 'home turf' Thursday evening, and we are enjoying every minute of 'chaos'. It's so good to have the kids in and out. Saturday evening found Nick & Hunter spending the evening with us, and Hunter brought a couple of board games over - and talked Grandma Twylah into making it a threesome. Playing "Deal or No Deal" and I was beating Nick . . . at which time he informed me that "Grandma's aren't supposed to beat grandson's". I gently shared that THIS GRANDMA plays to win, and so he might as well get used to it! Actually Hunter ended up beating us both!

But I won him over later that evening when I produced his favorite 'fried chicken & mashed potatoes' for supper. Thankfully, this generation's preferred 'fried chicken' is Tyson's chicken planks . . . and my version of mashed potatoes is 'instant', keeping it a pretty simple meal to produce on short notice.

As the time to call it a day approached, they contrived to spend the night with Grandma & Grandpa. Thinking it was because they had missed us so, we soon discovered the real reason was because they had caught a baby toad and wanted to make a 'habitat' for it - and keep a close eye on it! Grandma ended up contributing some 'supplies' for the habitat, with the stipulation that it absolutely could not be brought in the house! So "Lucy, the toad" spent the night in our garage, and then made the trip to the Mother's Day get-together, before being set free in Great-Grandma's flower bed.

Actually it was a big hit with the little ones, and we all got a good laugh out of watching Hayden stick his finger in the box to touch it. Each time he did, he would get so excited he would jump up and down, laughing. It's a wonder we didn't give the toad a heart attack!





Having little ones around is just so much fun!

Thought our day was ending when Russ invited Roger to ride over to one of the job sites with him. I elected to stay behind and get reacquainted with my recliner - and catch the 'Survivor' finale. Roger got home in time to catch the last hour - and then we watched the first hour by catching it on the 'west coast feed' with our DirecTV. We've never gotten in to TiVo, etc., but we sure find having both the East Coast and West Coast feeds come in handy.

Seems our bodies are still atuned to Pacific Time, as it is now midnight, and we are both still awake. Thankfully, we can sleep in a bit in the morning.