A Day To Celebrate!

On January 3rd, family and friends gathered to celebrate my mother's 90th birthday. It was a remarkable day. The idea for the event came from my oldest brother Jim and my brother,Rich, and sister-in-law, Anita, were the ones who really made it happen.

The day started with a Mass of Celebration at St. Lawrence Church in Faribault. This church is significant in mom's life as she was Baptised, made her First Communion, was Confirmed and Married at St. Lawrence... and now, it is scheduled to be torn apart - a new church is being built.
Mom is shown here on the altar and then joined by "the kids".


Paul and Jeff were altar "boys" - they are both older than the priest... I did the reading, and Jim and Rich brought up the gifts, the oldest great granddaughter, Lauren, read the petitions. It really was a family mass.

After the service, there was a reception at a neighboring church. Anita made a beautiful (and delicious) cake, actually two of them. Mom chatted with Kirk and Laura, checked out a mysterious gift from her nieces,
got a hug from Chuck, who was kind enough to play the piano for the service,


and shared laughter with Cheryl and brother-in-law Harold.

And, of course, there were family pictures. This is the first picture of mom with her grandchildren taken in many years; it is hard to get all these adults together in one place.


And since all but one of the great grandchildren were there, we thought we better have the next generation in the picture as well.

And then "The Kids and Spouses" needed to be included...

Mom is dwarfed by all of us family... what a legacy... 90 years and lots and lots of descendants to show for it!

It was a beautiful day and a wonderful tribute to this gracious lady, that I am lucky enough to call "Mom".<