OUT ON THE RIVER FOR MOTHER'S DAY...

Mother's Day is always a little hard for me... It is 8 years since we lost our beautiful Mum, and this is a day that I always really miss my Mum... Steve still has his parents so always rings his Mum for Mother's Day, and my kids always make my Mother's Day special.... but I have no one to ring and wish a Happy Mother's Day too.... I know that it is small and trival in the great scheme of things, but I am always acutely aware of my Mum not being here on Mother's Day...

In say that though I have been enormously blessed in my life by having the most wonderful graceful and beautiful Mum who was not only my Mum but also my closest friend and confidant, so it makes my missing her all the more profound.....

My beautiful Mum... Not a day goes by that you are not thought about...

Mum, today I remember you, I honour you and I thank God every day of my life for blessing me with such a wonderful Mum.  I have never stopped loving you, and the cherished memories of you are lived out in my daily life daily.  You are the reason, that I love my kids and grandkids like I do... you were the model of what true love, empathy, compassion, and caring is all about and I am so very very thankful for the legacy that you have left not only for me and my family but for our kids and their family also...  I so wish you could have been here to meet your beautiful great grandchildren, and also the rest of our family,  Dan and Maria...  You would have loved them all and they would have been so blessed by having you as part of their lives....

These days with all our kids living away, it is rare that I get to spend Mother's Day with any of them.. This year though I was blessed to our two of our beautiful grandchildren have a holiday with us and it was over Mother's Day, so  if my own children are unable to spend the time with me the next best thing is to spend it with the grandchildren....  We had such a great day together...

We did home church together in the morning and then a quick bite to eat for lunch before packing up a picnic afternoon tea and then we headed for the river... We had decided to take the grandchildren out in the boat and head up the river for a picnic...  It really was a great day with both the children super excited about our little adventure...

 Both the kids wanted to remain in the boat as Poppy launched it into the water....  Max was a little nervous but super excited as well...

And we are off.....

 

A very happy little chicken...

 As we were still in the 6kmp zone we had to go pretty slowly though here but Max was at Poppy to go faster....  It was still all thumbs up from him though when Poppy explained why we had to go so slow near the boat ramp....

All thumbs up to our afternoon on the river...

I love to see the smiles on their faces....

feeling the spray of water off her hand...

 We took the kids into a little creek to see all the birdlife and the beautiful lilies....

It was so peaceful on the river....

Lily pods and leaves...

Max picked up a stem and used it as a microphone....

This happy Mumma....

Amazing birdlife....

beautiful flowering lilies...

 From here we headed further up the river looking for a spot to have a picnic....
Initially we were looking for a little beach to pull up alongside of and we were going to have our picnic on the shore of the river but the children really wanted to have their picnic on the boat...

As we left the creek,  Steve decided to let Willow have a go at driving the boat... She was super keen... Max was not so sure....

Super happy to be driving the boat...

The look on her face...

 We ended up finding a little landing to pull up next to and tie off on so that we could stop and have our afternoon tea....  We could have got off the boat but the children really wanted to have it on the boat.....

We pulled up at a little landing...

Steve hopped off the boat to go and explore...

Getting ready to take some photos for me...

The kids discovered their whistles on their life jackets.

enjoying his hot cross bun..

Fun with Maxie...

 After we had our afternoon tea we ventured a little further down the river... This time, Max got to have a go at driving the boat....

Someone is pretty excited about getting to drive the boat...

A happy chappy

 By now it was late in the afternoon and the sun was starting to go down... Such a beautiful time to be out on the water...

Love the look between Poppy and Max....

 It really was a beautiful time to be out on the river with the setting sun,  the shadows and the reflections on the water....  We really do need to do this a lot more often....

Coming home on sunset....

 We couldn't have asked for a nicer end to our day.  Just as we were bringing the boat back to the boat ramp, we got a lovely facetime call from Pete, Maria and Theo also...
Feeling quite blessed today.