Mommy, I drove a loader!

19.2 Go on 10 "adventures"

I was going to call our entire weekend an adventure, but we definitely had an adventure on Sunday (well, J certainly did, the rest of us just had a very nice Mothers' Day. Yes, Mother is plural. You'll see why)

Sunday morning we all piled in my parents' car and drove off to my aunt and uncle's farm for Mothers' Day Brunch. Mothers' because there were five moms there. And those five moms had six daughters between them (and one mom didn't have any children present). Oh and there were three dads and two uncles. And the three in-laws in the group were all boys. Lots of girls. Not so many boys.

We got to the farm and the sun was out - a nice switch from when we all woke up and it was pouring rain! It was still a bit chilly though...

Alex and Meg had a great time getting warm and working up appetites playing catch in the yard. I'm not sure who had more fun!

J spent her warm up time driving this "police" car. They have a couple at daycare and one really is a police car. She would have puttered around in this thing for hours. When we have a place with a yard this is the first outdoor thing I'm investing in!

J was very helpful - she helped Mama open all of her cards. (Mama is my grandma and J's great grandma)

After brunch it was finally warm enough to sit in the sun. Uncle Mike delighted J with her very own copy of Trader. Oh my goodness, a police car to drive, pancakes for breakfast and now a magazine about trucks. Could this day get any better? Oh yes, yes it could. Uncle Mike then offered to take her to see his big machines and trucks.

First J got to "drive" the loader.

Then she got to "drive" a big truck

She loved pretending she was driving. She didn't quite understand the bed in the back of the cab though (sorry no picture of that).

"Uncle Mike, what does this do?"

J got to pose with her very own rig...

Can you believe the day is about to get even better? J and Uncle Mike hopped back into the loader.

...and swung it around to where we could all see J driving the loader. Yes, J is driving. Uncle Mike is just holding on to her.

After a few turns around the field, J and Uncle Mike took the loader back to have a rest.

Here we are (this is the best of a series of not great shots - it's hard to get all those people to look at the camera at once...). My dad took this picture so he's not in it, but here's the family who was there for Mothers' Day - my grandma, three of her daughters, two of her granddaughters, one of her great-granddaughters, two of her sons-in-law, and one of her grandsons-in-law. My grandma, the matriarch of our family, has six kids, fifteen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. She has five daughters, twelve granddaughters and three great-granddaughters...as this picture clearly illustrates, girls tend to out-number boys in our family!