Since Jason and the boys play D&D on Sundays, we decided to celebrate Mother’s Day a day early. Normally, we just do dinner out for Mother’s Day, but obviously that wasn’t happening during quarantine. So Jason asked me what I wanted to do, and then he built a day around it. As usual, he did an amazing job putting together an amazing day!

First, I woke up in the morning to the news that he’d signed me up for the RLGS Patreon! Then, after breakfast, the two of us went on a long hike at a local natural-trails park. While we were gone, Laurence cleared off the rest of the demolished deck area, and Ambrose made chocolate chunk cookies for me. We ended the morning with a delicious lunch of pancakes with blueberry compote and lemon mascarpone, modeling it on a meal from a local restaurant I love (but can’t go to right now).

In the afternoon, we watched some Great British Baking Show reruns and a fascinating movie called Wendy. (It was a reimagining of Peter Pan, and was really good until the last quarter, which became simultaneously contrived and inconclusive. But it had a theme of mother’s love, so it was very appropriate for Mother’s Day!) Then we had an amazing dinner of veggie lentil curry over rice noodles, and set up a fire pit on the driveway to roast s’mores. While we were out roasting, our former neighbors (by our old house) walked by and said hello!

On Mother’s Day proper, Jason and Laurence gave me a really awesome gift: Pop dolls of the Griffin brothers from the Seahawks! Then Laurence – who isn’t playing D&D at the moment – and I went down to a local coffee shop called Mildfire. I don’t go there often because they’re a 15-20 mins drive, but they do have amazing coffee. Today, they were participating with seven other cafes in a fundraising drive hosted by Patty Mills of the San Antonio Spurs. All sales made at the eight total cafes would be matched and doubled by Mills as a donation to the battered women’s shelter. Mildfire has done a really good job to set up safe ordering, and we had to wait in line for a bit, but it was worth it. Plus, we got filmed by a news crew, saw our mayor leave the coffee shop with an order, and stood (six feet) next to Derrick White from the Spurs while we waited on our drinks! (Confession: We didn’t know who he was until after we left the shop. Bad San Antonians!) Afterwards, we drove to my dad’s house (he lives close to the cafe) and hung out with him, my stepmom, and my sister Julia in their front yard for a bit. All from a safe distance, of course. Made for a nice morning!

Most of the rest of Mother’s Day was spent on reading, blogging, and generally relaxing. Got to FaceTime my mom for a bit, and hopefully I’ll get to see her soon. We’re starting to plan a yard hangout like the one with my dad. It’s been too long since we’ve seen my mom! In the evening, Jason set up another fire and we roasted hot dogs and sausages for a silly dinner. Then we all played Telestrations as the fire burned down. Might be the last evening it’s cool enough to do this for six months, so we definitely needed to take advantage!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend celebration despite the oddity of not being able to see my mom or to have a large family gathering. I hope y’all all weathered the weekend okay despite the bizarre current circumstances.