Happy Mother's Day, Mommy

 Thought I would take a few minutes to remember Mom today, on our annual official Mother's Day of the year.  Above is Mom, Bernadine Adele, at about 18 months of age.  Who would have thought she was already heading to be one of the best mom's of all time.

 Here's mom with her dolly - don't know it's name or where it may have ended up.  What a little cutie.

 And here's me and mom a few decades later.  I was a bit of a handful, I do believe.  Even what I can remember gives me pause these days. 

 This is the Ole Tangen and Kathryn Vandervort Tangen family when the kids were all grown up.  Mom is the one on the left behind the grandparents.  Two of the other siblings are gone, but fortunately the three younger ones are going strong and should be running around the track for a few more years.  Grandpa Tangen's family had been in the US from Norway for a couple of generations. Grandma could trace her family back to the founding of New Amsterdam, now Manhattan.

 Our parents took us all on a cruise to Mexico in March I think it was in 2000.  Little did we know that Dad wouldn't make it past the summer.  But we had great memories from the trip.  Silly old men.  I mean, he had heart trouble anyway but could still mow the grass on his nearly 2 acre home in Happy Valley, OR.  So the engine quits.  He and the old man next door (obviously sharing cognitive abilities) decide to pick the front end up and "take a look."  They didn't think to set the brake of course and so Dad fell.  He had a lot of pain but no apparent fracture. But off he went to rehab and apparently while the OT and PT were doing wonders for his gross motor skills, they also let lose the blood clot that resulted in his double pulmonary embolism.  But he would much have preferred to get through dying quickly as opposed to dragging it out.  The staff at the rehab center were great but also commiserated that these old guys "think they can do what they did in their 20's."  Everyone but me has gotten older since the photo above was taken.

 Looking good, Mom!

 Grandma and the "Selfie Queen" on our cruise to Alaska in 2003. 

Mom on our last Tangen Family Reunion for which she was still alive.  My late sister was also there and we were having a lot of fun cruising on the Mississippi River.  At the last family reunion in 2013, we remembered both of them at the memorial.

 

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM -- LOVE YOU STILL!