The Big Island

My special birthday surprise finally is here!!!!! July 8th Brian and I flew to Maui from Phoenix. It certainly was a special time to sit in one place for 5 hours with my youngest son. Even when he visits home sharing him with his friends and the rest of the family I would be lucky whenever I could get at least two hours of undivided time. What I thought would be five hours of inspirational and motivational exchange of ideas and thoughts only went for about 30 minutes. The rest of the time went to reading, creating Brian’s website, watching a movie, eating and sleeping. But never mind all that I can still say I sat next to Brian a solid 5 hours.

We landed in Maui and it was warm and had a great tropical feel. Looking out into hills of coconut and banana trees. Impressive blue sky and majestic green mountains. It really brought me back to the Philippines Islands.

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Surprise of a lifetime !

At this time of my life I wish to hold back birthdays to come and just forget about all the “Big Ones” to come. You know like first 40’s, 50’s and then 60’s. Well here it is my really big one  “The big six oh…..60” that number is even hard to write.

Well, I must say it came with style and a bang. My wonderful children Molly, Amy , Jeff and Brian along with their better halfs David,Cristina,Joe and Nadia surprised me last February at work at Nordstrom in Bellevue, Washington. I first received three beautiful yellow/green orchids in a square glass vase, and the message just read...To The Manager, Mary Ann Boring. It was a big mystery, wow….do I have a mystery admirer in the store? After 30 minutes I received a bag of Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts……same message. Now, that really arose my staff’s curiosity on who the admirer was. One hour later….a bag of Kona Coffee. Okay….I concluded that whoever is sending this can’t be some unknown because it seems the mystery person knows what I like. After the first surprise I called my daughter Amy making sure it was not her sending me flowers. Wait….surprise still kept coming. That night there was a package for me at home. I opened the manila envelope and it was a guide book to Hawaii and plane tickets. I was totally, out of my skin surprised…..my children decided to spring

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my big 60th Birthday surprise early….since my birthday is not till July. They know me so well. I have been talking and thinking of going somewhere in July for my big one and wishing all my kids could join me. But that would be too good to be true since my son Jeff was expecting my new grandson around the same time.

The celebration was going to start early July with a family pool party at Jeff’s home. And my kids could not dream of sending me by myself so Brian, my youngest son who happens to be born on my birthday will be my chaperone along with his lovely girlfriend Nadia. So, maybe when I am lucky enough to be around for the next big one, everyone will be able to join me. So, I just have to wait 5 months before the celebration starts.