May is here!

May has arrived so it's time for a blog update.  

We enjoyed having Clare's, Kirk's, Laurel, Dawson and Ashley here on Easter Sunday.  Eric was still involved in a hockey camp in Regina so he and Greg didn't make it here that day.

The next day Eric went for his driver's license test drive in Regina and passed!  Congratulations to the newest driver in the family!      There are three boys in the Erickson family who were born within three weeks of each other in 2003 - Rylan Conrad on February 26, Eric Diekrager on March 8 and Drew Peakman on March 15.  Now they have all turned 16, have their drivers' licenses and they each have a car!!

Rylan, Eric and Drew at 2017 Erickson reunion
All three are six feet tall or more now!

May and June have many upcoming special events including three grade twelve graduations!   Carter's is first, on Friday, May 24 at Lampman.  Dawson's is on Friday, June 15 at Milestone and Abbeys on June 27 in Weyburn.  We are so fortunate that no two grads were the same day!!

Frontier has a yearly celebration on May 17th, Norway's Independence Day.  Alan and I are planning to take that in again this year.  I better start practising some Norsk music on the accordion!

Abbey is busy with practices for the Weyburn Comp's production of the musical "Mama Mia".  We plan to take it in on Sunday, May 26, an afternoon performance at the Cugnet Centre.  It's hard to believe that this is our last chance to see her perform as part of Weyburn High School!

On May 30 Alan and I will be leaving on a five-day bus trip to three Blue Jay games in Denver, Colorado.  It will be our fourth Blue Jay bus trip with Stagecoach Tours, and the first one to Denver.  We will overnight in Gillette, Wyoming going down and also coming back.  We love traveling this way as everything is taken care of for us!

Mothers Day is tomorrow so I want to wish all mothers and grandmas a very Happy Mothers Day.  Ardis sent money for flowers for me so I chose a bouquet of thirteen carnations - seven pink ones for our seven granddaughters and six burgundy ones for our six grandsons that Alan and I share. We are so blessed.

My mother was born in 1919 so she would have been 100 years old on August 11 of this year.  She had polio in 1952 before Sandra was born and was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life from the age of thirty-two.  She died on November 4, 1984, at the age of 65.  I am so blessed to have lived twelve years longer than she did. She got to know all twelve of her grandchildren.  When I was 65 I still had four more granddaughters to arrive and can't imagine missing out on those!

Mom was always thankful that it was her legs that were affected by polio and not her arms.  She did so much sewing and handwork as well as baking all our bread, buns, cookies, pies, etc.

Camping in 1956 with red shirts made by Mom

Stockings made for all 12 grandchildren

Proud of her new stainless steel cupboards at the farm
and the curtains she sewed for the window.

She enjoyed decorating cakes

Bread fresh from the oven

Baked buns, cake and coffee bread, always a treat when I came home

Mom didn't get to any graduations of her grandchildren and now I will be taking in three graduations this spring.  She and Dad came to Torquay for Clare's kindergarten graduation and they were also here for Laurel's confirmation.  That was their last visit here as she had a massive heart attack in 1983 and died the next year shortly after her 65th birthday.

I have so many wonderful memories of my precious Mom.