The Conley Family: It is my Easter/Birthday/Mother's Day

As you know our lives are kind of nutty. Teaching, coaching/traveling, grad. school (Clint), law school (me) that got put on hold so I can complete a social studies major to make George Bush happy, garden club, gardening, remodeling our VERY old house, book club, school board- which I don't write about- I am trying to limit the politics on this since it is primarily for the Grandmas, Grandpas, out of town relatives, and as it turns out my students and former students - and of course our amazing kids almost 12 and 1, make our lives a whirl wind of epic proportion. (Yes I know that sentence is grammatically incorrect on lots of levels but again it is my blog) Any way this means the specified day to celebrate events doesn't necessarily coincide with when we have time to celebrate. I ran into one of my professors from CMU, Dr. Shelly Hink, who coincidentally also happened to be my college debate/forensics coach's wife, at a tournament this spring and I was explaining to her this issue in regards to birthdays. You see my birthday is April 13th. This generally lands right smack in the middle of forensics regionals, the Knights Of The Round Table competition, and the week before final exams of spring semester of college classes. I was madly getting kids ready, while Clint was madly finishing a ten page paper. I was also dealing with budget cuts for school board and voting on some really awful layoffs. Not a great time to be making party plans. Shelly said they never told their kids when their birthdays were so they could celebrate when it fit- "Guess what it's your birthday! Lets have a party!" This sounded good to me. Now we hit the kids within the week of their birthdays, but as for everybody else that is up for grabs. Clint was worried- he kept telling me I have to do something for your birthday - I told him just pretend my birthday is some time in late May to June when it works. I even knew what I wanted for a present- roses. Now not just any roses, special roses. As my garden club buddies know getting roses to grow in Michigan can be a challenge. I have done the covers and the mulch, and wrapped with burlap and still ended up with dead roses. When Clint and I were first having our "Sleepless In Seattle" phone conversations between Traverse City and Cedar Springs gardening was one of our main topics. He told me about his roses, which he did nothing to and that came back year after year unbidden. We would eventually move these roses to Cedar springs- all five feet of them- in my Escort- but that is another post. We also moved his red bud tree, but again that is another post. You see they are Canadian Explorer roses. Hardy with out protection to zone 2- Yes you read correctly zone 2. I got on line and started doing some research. This is when I found Great Lakes Roses. They sell only roses, only winter hardy, grown on their own roots- not grafted in other words, and grown in Michigan guaranteed to live. By the way they don't ship. They will deliver for $1 a mile each way. Did I mention they are in Ann Arbor? Did I mention they are going out of business- they are retiring at the end of this year. A trip to Great Lakes Roses to buy roses is what I wanted for my: Easter/ birthday/Mother's day and if you want to get it out of the way- anniversary present. My dad kicked in money for two roses for my birthday and Rita gave me money for one and watched the kids while we went. The stars aligned themselves in our day timers this last weekend and we made the pilgrimage dropping the kids off in Lansing. Clint was even surprised at the quality and quantity of roses. He told me "I know you have a set budget, but get what you want - this is just amazing!" We read, plotted, planned, sniffed, measured, compared, and left with ten amazing roses on their own roots all winter hardy with out protection.