Mom's kid day

So I woke up on Mother's Day feeling just as crappy as I had the previous 3 days: sore throat, cough, headache. I had momentary thoughts of staying in bed and hiding out all day. But then Sean knocked on my bedroom door and brought in a nice breakfast of 2 fried eggs on toast (Dave's Killer 5 grain-my favorite), a bowl of strawberries and some orange juice. So I thought I'd better eat it. Then a 1/2 hour later, the other kids came in: Thomas had a card that he had walked a mile to a store to buy all by himself the day before and Milla had crafted a pretty impressive paper rose for me that she had written a bunch of sweet messages on the petals of. As you can see from the picture, the two gifts matched perfectly (although unintentional).  So that was sweet and woke me up a little. Then Brandon asked if I wanted to go on a walk with the family that morning. So I just decided, what the heck, no reason to let a little sore throat dictate my life. So I didn't. And we had a lovely 2 mile walk around a lake on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal (a chemical development turned nature preserve area north of Denver). I got 2 new birds for my life list: lark bunting (CO state bird- about time) and the Bullock's oriole along with seeing a bunch of Canada Goose and their hatchlings, tree and barn swallows and, of course, the ever present red-winged blackbird.  We also decided we had just enough time before church to do the nature drive where we spotted a good herd of wild bison and some deer.  The kids continued to spend time time with their mama after church playing an escape room board game and a paint matching game that Milla had crafted. So much fun to laugh with Brandon and my kids. Just the medicine I needed.

So this is actually just south of the preserve- a shot of a flock of pelicans (and a couple cormorants) that I spotted while waiting for my train one day after school. Cool! They are just such massive birds. I'm always surprised when they are able to take to flight.

Obviously not my pictures, but just to note the birds I saw on my hike!