We missed being home with Dan for Mother's Day, but I enjoyed being able to spend it with my own mother. It's been at least 5 years since I've been home for Mother's Day. Dan sent a beautiful arrangement of flowers and I was totally surprised they were for me. At first I just assumed they were for my mom. Was really sweet. Too bad Dan couldn't miss classes and come out with us. Darn medical school. Guess school's pretty important right now too.
My dad bought orchid corsages for my mom and I to wear to church. Mine was yellow and mom's was white. I've never seen a yellow one before. We had a nice dinner all together later on that afternoon. We managed to take few pictures out by the flower gardens in front of the house. Michael didn't really feel like taking pictures, so the shots aren't that great, but at least we got a few shots together. And you can see me at 24 weeks pregnant. :)
We went out to Dos Mas for Mexican food one evening. Dinner was alright but dessert was wonderful. I think I've been persuaded by Dan's take on Mexican food. That is, unless you get something out of the norm, you can pretty much everything at home and it tastes about the same. I still enjoyed my meal, don't get me wrong, but what I really enjoyed was the flan, churros, and sopapillas. Authentic Mexican desserts made by the natives (well maybe). Yum. It was good.
Otherwise we mostly just hung out and relaxed. My mom taught Michael how to play pachinko, a Japanese mixture between slot machine and pin ball. She inherited the game from her parents who bought it when they lived in Taiwan. I never saw it there while I was in Taiwan, but I guess I was a missionary at the time. It has a million balls and Michael loved it. It also loved the pool table balls. My mom showed him how to hit the balls with another ball and he got pretty good at aiming and hitting the balls in by knocking it with another ball. I think he asked to play everyday we were there. 
Of coarse we had to visit "Aunt" Julie as well. She came up to the beach house with us for a night too. After finally warming up to their house, Michael discovered all kinds of fun things- the bike tire they were fixing, the candy jar, and the cute little teddy and chair. I didn't get a picture of it, but he also loved their dog, Murphy. He watched it run around the backyard for a while. The dog was so excited and trampling over Michael, they put him back in the kennel with the blanket covering it. Michael kept hearing him and wanted him to come out again. He still just loves dogs. Sometimes when we are out walking along our path here in Minnesota, dog owners will let Mikey pet their dogs. He's not scared anymore and loves when they lick him. If we weren't having another child, maybe I'd consider a dog for him. :) Julie invited us to her school to see all the animals she has there in the bio labs and we totally forgot to go. I bet Mikey would have loved that.
Let's see. After 8 days in Houston, we drove the 4.5hrs out to Louisiana for Stacey's graduation and stayed with her for 3 days. We flew home from Baton Rouge so we didn't have to do the drive again, although our flight was rerouted and we traveled through Houston again to go back to Minneapolis. That's another story in and of itself. While I was calling to let the airlines know that I had a "lap baby" at about 10pm the the night before my 4:00pom flight the next day, I found out that my flight was canceled and they had me rescheduled for some 11am flight. Would have been nice for them to let me know ahead of time. And this was Continental Airlines not the Air Tram cheaper one I flew down to Houston (which was actually rescheduled as well, but at least they notified me via email a few days prior). Anyhow, we finally got something all worked out and so I traveled through Houston instead of Memphis, TN and ended up in the Twin Cities 3hrs earlier than originally planned which was nicer all around. But man, if you are flying these days, seems like you better double check your flight the night before or else you may not have one.
The Family
Carolyn, Dan, David, & Michael