Happy birthday Mom

Wishing my mom a wonderful 85th birthday today.  

Nutroll making November 2013

What a difference a year makes - this time last year we didn't know that my mom's aortic valve was not working well.  In fact, it wasn't working much either.  But she has recovered well from open heart surgery and this past weekend, we celebrated "Peg-palozza!"

My oldest brother flew in for the weekend on Thursday.  On Saturday, my parents, brother, niece who is staying with my parents, along with my husband and I traveled to North Jersey to meet up with my nephew who lives in North Jersey and son, who is now a New Yorker, at the restaurant where my nephew is a manager.  We enjoyed a long and leisurely late lunch where there was much laughing and carrying on.  And on Sunday, we all met up again at a restaurant in my Pennsylvania home town where my niece works for another lunch.  It was a weekend of eating, story telling and lots of laughing.  A perfect way to celebrate my mom, who has a wonderful Irish sense of humor.

We also got to attend an open house at the home that my mom's family lived in (for almost 100 years) and recently sold after my uncle's passing.  It was sold to some young house flippers who did a wonderful job fixing up the house.  We were able to relay some great stories to the patient real estate brokers who were not fazed when 11 of us in my family showed up and none of us were buyers!  In fact, my mom was born in that house 85 years ago, the baby in a family of 8 children.

Of course, today we celebrated with a snow storm.  Good thing I visited yesterday because getting out of my driveway was kind of hairy today!