I have just celebrated my 40
th year as a mom. As I reflect each year about being a mom, it is hard to believe that it has been 40 years. I still remember the joy of the miracle of first becoming a mom. Over the years there were lots of good times and of course some not so good times, but I can truthfully say that being a mom was my most favorite title in the whole world. That is until I became "Nana". Now THAT is a great title. It is hard to explain how when you love being "mom" how Nana can even
surpass that role. I think I was created to be a Nana. I love every minute of it. It is so neat that your adult children are people that you love to spend time with. Friends. People you would like to hang out with even if they were not related to you.
And then to top that off they bring you wonderful grand-children. Grand-children are in my opinion God's greatest earthly blessing to us. Just as you are getting to the point where you feel "not needed" by your own children Grand-children come and you again have a role to play. Only now you don't have the responsibility of paying for their clothes, food, Dr. bills, lessons, college etc etc. You just have the time to enjoy them and do all the things you didn't have time to do when your own children were growing up. And it is so much fun to see their parents personalities coming out in them in so many ways. Kirsten, my first grand-child made me a Nana. What a joy that 1st grand-child is. But as #2 and then #3 & 4 come along they are just as special. Wow! 4 grand-children. I never thought I would have 4. But it is so wonderful. Each one is so different and so much fun. I hate that my 3 precious grand-daughters live so far away that I don't get to spend a lot of time with them, but they are still so precious to me and I try to keep up with them from a distance. And when I do get to be with them I try to make up for lost time. And it is special getting to stay a few days with them and seeing them morning through night. My sweet grand-son lives close and I get to take care of him a few days a week while his mommy works and that is precious time. Right now that sweet little boy is asleep in his bed in the next room. We are making lots of memories. The latest ones is of him going on the potty. That is big and we celebrate it big. He is so excited as we all are. His big goal was to get trained so he could go to Disney, take gymnastic lessons and get a build it
lego bulldozer. Lots of incentives that have worked well. In June I will be spending time with the grand-daughters at their house and I look forward to that. The 2 youngest will have dance recitals and I can't wait to see them in it. I just feel so very blessed that I have been able to enjoy not only my children growing up and becoming friends, then they married and brought us two more friends and our 4 grand-children. Life is good. God is SO good. If you are not yet a grand-parent just wait. You have NO idea what fun is in store for you. To each mother I hope you had a Happy Mother's day. Your role is not always easy, but it is fleeting. Enjoy it. The best is yet to come. When you can like as well as love your grown children you have succeeded as a parent. They will leave for a time to go to college or whatever, but they do come back. Even when they live far away, they come for visits and those visits are special times. I love watching the circle of life. I am now where my parents were just a short time ago. They have both gone on the heaven now and I sure miss them. I want to have enough memories made that when my time comes (hopefully not until I am at least 80) that my grand-children will have loads of memories of their Nana.
Thanks Richard and Stephanie for making me "mom" and for making me "nana". You guys did good. I am blessed and very very thankful.
#1 Grand-daughter Kirsten
#2 Grand-daughter Hannah
#3 Grand-daughter Emily
#4 Grand-child Tanek (#1 grand-son)
It doesn't get any better than this. How could you ask for any better unless it would be for more? I don't want to get greedy though. These 4 will do very nicely. Love you sweeties.
Morgan is flying high and going round and round
Tanek loved swinging with Morgan
This morning Papa worked on the swing some more. He put in a strap that would hold him in and blocked off the top. I think he has it just right now. You can see how much fun Tanek had on the new swing and no chance of falling out.
We went to Disney Playhouse (which of course is Tanek's favorite show). Here he is watching it.
We also took the backstage tour and I snapped some of the pictures that they have used in movies.
This is a replica of the water tower that used to be (or may still be?) at the Disney studio's in Burbank, Calif.
Good Ol Herbie!
Some movie shots
I had been wanting one of these ice cream bars since the first time we started coming here. I finally got one and really didn't like it that much. It was dark chocalate and way to chocalatey.
Here is a picture of downtown New York City.
And of course we always go to Radiator Springs to visit with Lightning and Towmator
We had a great 3 days and Tanek has not stopped talking about it since we came home. It really is fun to see the excitement in a 3 year old eyes as he experiences all the magic of Disney World.
#2 Grand-daughter Hannah
#3 Grand-daughter Emily
#4 Grand-child Tanek (#1 grand-son) 
It doesn't get any better than this. How could you ask for any better unless it would be for more? I don't want to get greedy though. These 4 will do very nicely. Love you sweeties.
We tried to pose Tanek between Mickey & Minnie. There wasn't much room for him.
Tanek shopping for baby Pluto. Last time he got a big Pluto and this time he got the baby Pluto.
This was one of the new attractions. We didn't go on it, but we did think about it. Maybe next time.
We went to the Lego store. Here you can make cars and race them. It was a lot of fun. They have unbelievable things made from lego's. You can buy kits and then they have all kinds of things you can buy to add to your kits. Lots of fun.
After lunch we went back to the hotel and let Tanek play in the room for awhile and then took him to the big pool. He had a great time with mommy and meme. Nana took pictures. He is a water baby. He didn't mind one bit getting completely under the water and just kept jumping off and having so much fun. The pool water temp was wonderful. Wish ours was this warm.
Mommy and meme helping Tanek in the water.
Catch me meme!
Tanek is standing in front of the spurting fountain. You can see it to the right of him.
Mommy's turn to catch me.
Late afternoon we headed over to Epcot to see the flower's and the fireworks. The fireworks were absolutely awesome. Even better than the one's at the Magic Kingdom. The flowers and landscaping was beautiful. They had all sorts of characters done in flowers and plants. Just beautiful. It is one of my favorite parks to visit. I didn't think I would like it since it is so eduacational and I am more for fun, but it has a lot of neat things to do and see. Below is Snow White and the 7 dwarfs.
Meme and Tanek in front of some of the beautiful flowers.
Cinderella's carriage!
Beautiful flowers, with Mickey in the background.
The beautiful fountain at Epcot in the evening.
Tuesday was probably my favorite day of the 3. We did things we hadn't done before and of course we didn't have to travel there or back home on that day. I just really enjoyed Epcot. We went on the ride in the big golf ball that takes you way back in time to the future. We went on the Nemo ride, and a couple other things that I can't remember right now. Seeing their fireworks was my favorite part of the whole trip. They were just incredible. Stephanie was able to capture a lot of them and hopefully she will find time to post them soon. The landscaping is just beautfiul and I could just walk around and look at it. It was nice going over late afternoon because so much of the crowd was leaving. Yeah! Tomorrow I will post day 3. Hollywood Studio's.
One of the first character's we saw was Pluto who is Tanek's favorite of all the characters.
Up close and personal with Pluto
Tanek riding the carousel.
The Disney bus which is one of Tanek's favorite rides. He loves the Disney bus.
Meme and Tanek on the Disney Bus.
At the hotel we took Tanek to the kiddy pool. He loved it and just had a good time splashing around and making new friends. He doesn't meet a stranger
Drying off with mommy after a fun afternoon.
After dinner we went back to the Kingdom and rode all the rides that he wanted to ride during the parade. We were able to get on everything he wanted to ride and then watch the fireworks which were great. Stephanie will post some of those when she has time. Her camera can get good shots of them and they were quite pretty. Here we are riding on Dumbo which is probably his favorite ride.
Then it was back to the hotel for the night. Tanek fell asleep on the bus and here he is down for the night. He was tired. We all were.
The weather was quite warm (hot) but there was a breeze blowing and mostly we did the parks in the late afternoon/evening. It was really nice because Stephanie had made all the arrangements and it went so smoothly. We had the meal plan and it was great. We didn't even have to use any fast passes, we just timed our rides when most of the people were doing other things. I will post the 2nd day tomorrow.
