Happy Birthday, Mother!

My mother, Aloha, would have been 99 years old yesterday.  So on Friday, my siblings got together for lunch in her honor.  We ate several servings of clam chowder, one of her favorite foods, and talked of memories we had of her.  Since she passed away over 45 years ago, it was challenging for some of us.  Jackie, who was only seven at the time of her death, she has few real memories so she loves to hear the older siblings talk about her and her love of life.  She was often the life of the party and was great at including others and helping them to enjoy themselves.  A popular story tells about a time when she was hosting a gathering and she had requested that everyone wear casual attire so they could relax and enjoy the evening.  One neighbor came wearing a tie.  She promptly went over and said "no ties" and took a pair of scissors and cut off his tie.  That made a lasting impression.

Jackie, Cathy, Greg and Steve sitting in our little living room chatting about times past.

Jackie, who is an amazing photographer, put her camera on a tripod and took this photo of all of us.  Steve, Kristen, Jackie, Cathy and Greg.  Cathy looks a lot like Aloha if you just put a dark colored wig on her.  However, she was my height but much thinner.  She probably weighed about 100 lbs on a good day.

 On Thursday, my sister, Cathy and I drove down to Payson for the temple open house.  We loved that temple.  We are sure that a lot of brides will want to be married in this beautiful temple.

 Then we picked up Ann K. and took her to lunch for Mexican food which is a favorite of hers to celebrate Mother's Day with her.  It was a very pleasant lunch and gave us a chance to catch up.  We had a ticket for her to join us for the open house but she had already been that same morning with her grandson, TJ and his wife, Jill.

Steve picked this beautiful Mother's Day bouquet for us from our garden.  I love these brightly colored iris.