60th anniversary celebration

 Honouring the Mother of A Good Man

How in this Mother’s Day week could I not mention the mother of my husband – the woman who raised him and his siblings and taught them to be the good, kind and strong people that they are. My mother-in-law has an ultra-adventurous spirit and unlike me, who has called the same city home for most of my life, she has followed her urges to shake things up and change – if not cities and provinces, at least houses. Yesterday I spoke of the gardening gene passed from soul to soul from my grandmother. My husband’s mom is a brilliant artist and this talent has come to life in my daughter and even my small granddaughters. From the three-year-old to the eighty-year-old you can’t hold them back from their creativity, bent over their canvases  all of them can fill an afternoon creating vibrant and wildly imaginative masterpieces, comfortable to focus completely on their muse. thumbnail_FullSizeRender (1)

 

So the question for the Text Me, Love Mom quiz today is:  Where has Zoë moved to when her nervous mom thinks, “What I feared, of course, is that she would move in with a shoddy bunch of eccentric artists who had gone far beyond body piercing, wouldn’t even have parents, and would hardly let me darken their doorstep.”

Answer in the comments section.  The person with the most correct answers this week will receive a signed copy of Text Me, Love Mom, Two Girls, Two Boys, One Empty Nest – available from Amazon and other online book sellers.

 

The Secret of Staying Married …..

– To read Text Me, Love Mom – the book go to  http://www.amazon.com/Text-Me-Love-Mom-Girls/dp/1771800712  –

Nearly 60 years have passed between the quiet Friday night wedding service in 1955 in King City, Ontario uniting my in-laws and the boisterous three day celebration on Shuswap lake B.C. for their diamond anniversary. If fresh faced Bill and Norma, at just 20 years of age could have peered ahead through those six decades would they ever have imagined the four kids and their spouses, thirteen grand-kids with girlfriends and boyfriends, and a grand-son-in-law and the two adorable great-granddaughters?

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Their long marriage was celebrated from midday until the round moon rose high in the sky over three hot August days. The sun shone gloriously. The moonlight was brilliant.anniversary cake (2)

We swam, we floated, we boated, the athletic wake-boarded, the musical raised their voices in song.bango

A raucous cribbage tournament united us. The anniversary couple told stories, siblings reconnected and cousins shared on the dock in the starlight.

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Feasts were made and devoured, voices rang out, the little ones danced and twirled, and we laughed and laughed and laughed long into the night. Thank you Norma and Bill for that wedding night in 1955 and for showing us your journey of love.  XO  lucy sleeping on beachchair

How To Be Married For Sixty Years

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wedded bliss

In just nine sleeps my family will all gather at our lakeside cottage to celebrate sixty years of my husband’s parent’s marriage – a remarkable anniversary to plan a three day party around. Only two years ago my side of the family joyously gathered to mark my mom and dad’s union of sixty years, as well. As we plan meals, count air mattresses, and life jackets, text directions and shopping lists for next weeks celebration – I wanted to re-post the blog entry from July 2013 – the year of the flood and the first big party…

My parents were married on June 22nd, 1953 in a small wooden church in central Alberta.  All that day the rain poured down filling the country community yard with mud, so much so that the bridesmaid and her mother photographed their own muddy dress shoes after they pushed their car out of the muck leaving the dance that evening. Sixty years later on June 22nd Calgary, Alberta was waking up from one of the worst floods in its history. A week after, my parent’s children and their spouses, the grandchildren and two great grandchildren, drove and flew from three provinces to laugh under the sun umbrella,

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skunk each other in cribbage,

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jack knife into the cold lake,

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and then they strung the cottage with streamers, set the fanciest table it had ever seen, bedecked the table with wild flower bouquets and finally broke bread together (along with roast beef and piles of local steamed vegetables).fam at table

     After being presented with congratulatory letters from Stephen Harper and none other than her majesty, the Queen of England, the anniversary couple cut their cake, which was festooned with a miniature wedding couple that closely resembled the bride and groom during that year when ‘How Much is That Doggie in the Window’ was a hit song.  As my dad placed his hand over my mom’s along the edge of the knife handle and sliced into the butter cream and chocolate cake, we asked them to reveal the secret to being married for these six decades. My dear, sweet mommy replied, “Tolerance.”  And my funny dad said, “She kept the back door locked, so no escaping that way.”  But really it has been love and admirable devotion, and really and truly having each other’s backs.  I recently read a quote by the actor Jeff Bridges, who was also asked to explain the success of  his long marriage.  He replied that the secret to staying married – is staying married. And maybe you have to be into for a few decades to understand the meaning of that seemingly simple answer.

Rocking the Sixtieth Anniversary Countdown – continued from last post

Our whole lives my parents and I have been traveling by the little town of Field, B.C.on the side of the trans Canada highway as we have climbed or descended through the Rockies on various vacations. This morning, on the second day our travels to their Sixtieth Anniversary weekend destination, we all woke up in this, oh so picturesque, tiny town. I’d learned, googling on my iPad the night before that, “ Field was established during the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) as a locomotive depot for pusher engines required to help trains over the nearby Field Hill and Big Hill.”   train yard

While I waited for Mom and Dad to meet me for breakfast I strolled the mountain streets above the train yards, clicking away with my iphone camera, wondering if I had what it takes to start up a guest house- which appeared to be the main occupation in Field – could I bake a scone, turn down a bed, put up with guests ridiculous questions – like mine, “Hey, anyone know when the TransCanada will open?”

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Finishing off the fat sausages and thick toast with our coffees, we could gaze from the restaurant out to the highway and see that it would be a different sort of drive to the cottage and anniversary weekend.  It would be a drive completely void of the hundreds of big transport trucks normally taking this route to the coast, with the highway still closed at that crucial point behind us.

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As we motored along, winding through the mountains at a relaxed pace, we were stocking up for the weekend, purchasing early B.C fruit at one stand (sweet little strawberries), discovering a new baker at a Salmon Arm coffee shop (whole wheat sourdough), and finally buying the very last of a crop of asparagus to add to our haul – as long as three asparagus a piece for twenty-seven people would work out.

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We drove through Golden and Revelstoke, Sicamous, Salmon Arm and Sorento, traveling in and out of storms, through sunshine and under rainbows, before turning down our steep driveway to the cottage on the lake – where my dad took my mom’s hand, his lovely bride of sixty years, and helped her down the walkway to the party destination.

With my daughters and husband following behind us we’ll all have twenty-four hours  to prepare coleslaw and beet and rice salad, saute Alberta beef, bake nanaimo bars and ginger cookies, blow up air mattresses and freshen rooms, sweep the decks and buy the booze, twist the streamers and pick bouquets…stay tuned – will the ‘bridal couple reveal the secrets to seven hundred and twenty months of wedded bliss?