Happy Birthday, Regan!

Today is my beautiful daughter's birthday! 36 years ago today I was tanned bronze from basking every afternoon in that unusually warm and sunny April winding down, awaiting the arrival of the present in my tummy. My little son and I would sit out on the patio while he played in the sandbox and think of names for a little boy or girl. He loved the name Regan and he never did say which boy's name he liked. Guess he knew she would be a girl. Back in those days, we, or at least I, didn't know ahead what the gender was so it was always a surprise and since it was 10 days before my birthday it couldn't have been a sweeter gift.
She was always ready to move around..couldn't be content in her little punkin seat until she could crawl and walk. She loved little toads and no matter how hard the boys in the neighborhood teased her with them, she would grab them from their hands and kiss the little dudes. That being said, she was very attached to her mom and very shy and as she grew, mom had to participate in her activities~yes, I had to get on the mat with her during gymnastics~did a couple somersaults once or twice and even had to get on the trampoline with her. I was worried she would never out grow that but when it came to the next year when she was 4 we enrolled her in ballet and she forgot her shyness. She loved ballet and from then on tap danced her way through junior high and high school. She loved playing the flute and the violin. Music was her outlet when she got stressed.
She's an ethnic conglomeration~part Lebanese, German, Scot-Irish, and a little Dutch~ so maybe that's why she always had the longing to go, go somewhere, see the world. About 10 years ago she decided to move all the way to Portland, Oregon from Indiana. By herself! How proud I was that she didn't have to have her mom with her on that excursion! She'll be getting married for the first time this summer in July to a wonderful man from Holland and she waited till she found the best man to spend her life with. I couldn't be more joyful!
She's traveled to several places in the world~I've traveled in books. She's creative like her mom but she is an artist, and a jewelry maker~ she loves the outdoors, to hike and to ski...Oregon is the perfect place for her~she's just like me~ only opposite.
She looks like me, too...if I was tall, blonde and slender!
Happy Birthday, Reggie! Love, Mom