Mother's Day on Kauai

We woke up very early (4 am) to get ready to catch an early morning flight to Kauai. The plan was that we would be picked up from the airport from John and go to the church and hide in one of the back buildings until it was time to surprise Mark's mom. Mark's mom always does a Mother's Day presentation in front of the church, and she gives prizes to certain catagories of mother's such as oldest mother, youngest mother, etc. So she was on the stage when the church staff said to Jan that her family had a presentation for her. She was so busy trying to organize her stuff that she didn't even notice us at first, but she let out a shriek of happiness when she saw John and then another when she saw us. She was very happy to be with her two sons in church on Mother's day.

Mark's mom has an unusual mother's day tradition. On Kauai, there is a ice cream chain called Lapperts that sells Hawaiian ice cream. Its very rich and creamy, and on Mother's Day you can go to Lapperts and they will give a free ice cream cone to anyone who is a mother. There are 4 locations in Kauai and Mark's parents drive to each one so that Mark's mom can get a free ice cream cone from each location. It takes about 3-4 hours for her to drive all over the island to get to all the locations, but she loves to do it and yes, she can eat all that ice cream and not get sick. So Mark and I went with her for the first two locations. I must admit the ice cream is good, but I couldn't bring my conscience to lie about being a mom, so i just bought a cone at the first place and skipped the second. We went home in between and we decided to spend some time with Mark's brother John instead of going to the next two places. When Mark's parents returned from their trip, we visited Mark's grandmother and had dinner with Mark's family. We actually ate Coldstone for dessert (as if we didn't have enough ice cream in our stomachs...heheh). It was a nice day.