My Mom, My Friend

With Mother's Day approaching, I wanted to dedicate this blog to my Mom.  I love you Mom!  You have taught me so much through out the years, but the greatest thing you have taught me about is LOVE...love of our Heavenly Father, love for your husband, love for your children, and love for others around you. You are a constant and a rock in my life and I know I can pick up the phone at any time and you will be there to listen to my sorrows and my joys.  We may not always see eye to eye on everything, but we still know we love each other very much.  You are not only my mother, but one of my closest friends.  Happy Mother's Day!

My Mom and Dad on their wedding day.  

My Mom holding me when I was a baby.

My Mom passed on her love of flowers and gardening to me.

My Mom passed on her love of riding and animals to both my sister and I.  My sister is on the bay and I am on the Appaloosa.  We spent hours and hours on horseback with our Mom, riding around the ranch and chasing lots of cows.

A fun trip we had with our horses up in the mountains.  My Mom has had back surgery twice and one of the times being from a horse accident that almost paralyzed her.  She now has doctor's orders that she can not ride horses anymore.  I can tell there is a little part of her that gets sad every time she sees me riding a horse without her.  In fact my parents have gotten rid of all their horses because no one is around to ride them anymore.  I miss riding with my mom and sister.  My parents are thinking about getting a horse for the grand kids to ride this summer so maybe I will get some riding in, but I certainly will miss riding with my Mom.

My Mom taught me how to be a good student.  Mom and I at my apartment while I was in college.

Mom, my sister (Christey) and I on a camping/fishing trip we took shortly before I got married.

Mom putting on my necklace and kissing me on my wedding day.

Our family started out with the 4 of us kids...

we grew up, got married...

And then came the babies!

My parents have 17 grand kids!  Not all of them are pictured here, but most of them.

This is one of my favorite pictures of our daughter Aubrey when she was a baby with my Mom.

We have lots of memories out at this pond behind my parent's house.  Ice skating, falling through the ice, fishing, swimming, throwing dirt clauds and cat tails at each other (oops that is a long story for a different time), canoeing  catching bull frogs, tad poles, and turtles, shooting skunks and gophers, and the list goes on.  Now the grand kids get to enjoy the pond, especially since my Dad redid it and made it deeper.  The girls hung out here a lot last summer.

We have lots of memories of feeding bottle calves.  Aubrey, and Mackenzie following Grandma back from the barn after bottle feeding a calf.

I love this picture of my parents!

My Mom taught me how to let loose and dance like nobodies watching! Ok maybe not, I still have a hard time letting go and acting like nobody is watching!  I remember I use to get so embarrassed when we would go to dances and Mom would get out there and "shake her boodie".  I would cover my face and get red because Mom's aren't suppose to dance to rock you know!  But my parents and brothers did teach me how to dance to country music (not to rock) and I love to dance with Ross now.  Our girls absolutely love to dance as well!  Here is my Mom dancing with Aubrey at a wedding we went to a few years ago.  Look at her go! :)

Both my Mom and Dad taught me how to work hard.  Still to this day my parents work harder than just about anyone I know who is their age.  My mom shouldn't be working so hard with all her aches and pains, but both my Mom and Dad seem like the older they get, the busier they get.  Someone has to do it I guess as all of us kids aren't there anymore to help out, so my Mom spends a lot of days in the field helping my Dad hay or feeding cows in the winter.  Hmm...I wonder if they will ever retire.  I don't think my Dad could handle retirement.  He wouldn't know what to do with himself! :)

The girls love riding the tractor around with Grandma and Grandpa.  

For a while anyways and then they get bored.

This past summer, my parents took some time away from the ranch to drive up the Alcan highway with the girls and I.  We needed to haul some stuff up so they were kind enough to help me make the drive and get all our groceries for the year and get everything on the barge.  What a huge blessing this was.  It was a lot of driving, but we had some good laughs along the way!

Entering the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek

Grandma and Marina looking at the one and only caribou we saw on the entire Highway.

Melting in Tok Alaska.  It was really quite warm here.  I love the looks on my parents faces!

My parents and our family in Seward, AK at the Sea Life Center.

I love you my Mom, my friend!  Happy Mother's Day to the World's Best Mom (at least in my book)!