MOM = WOW

This is belated, but the sentiment is not. This is also a sentimental non-knitting post. So fair warning! Crafty stuff soon, but I'm not famous, so it doesn't matter! (That's us at Ft. Lauderdale beach circa 1980.)



I am so lucky to have the mom that I do. She truly is one of my best friends, and something is not real until I can share it with her.

To me, my mom is fearless. She left her country and entire family in the Philippines to come to grad school in Hawaii at 21.

When things fall apart, she is always there to cry and laugh about it and eventually pick up the pieces.

My mom taught me how to sew, let me make little purses on her sewing machine, and bought me a Fisher Price loom that I still wish I had. The title is because I once made her a pillow that spelled out M-O-M in cut-out letters. When you turned it upside down, take a wild guess what it said? Wow. I know! And she still puts it out every Christmas.

What else makes my mom so special?

She made my brother Andrew and me the coolest Halloween costumes every year; an astronaut suit, a Star Trek suit, a hula dancer and a mad scientist.

She volunteered at our elementary schools and was extra sweet to classmates of mine that didn't have the greatest home life. One of them would even give her hugs and say,"Mrs. Huber, you smell SO good!"

She broke her ankle really badly in the Philippines on the top of a mountain, didn't get any pain relief for 8 hours and hardly cried. She is so brave!

She's led my family through some really tough times, like when my brother was in rehab. If anyone could have loved her more fiercely that me, it was my brother. They had the most special bond and he would have done anything for her.



She can speak three languages. English, Tagalog and Visayan.

She will run into someone she knows no matter what city, country or continent she is on.

My mom encouraged us to try new things, whether it be gymnastics, tennis, diving, hockey, water polo, or bass.
My mom has been a college counselor for high schools in Florida for some time now. People come up to us in public all the time to tell her, "I wouldn't have applied to college if it wasn't for you, and now I'm applying to med school."

She taught us manners, respect and that all people are created equally.

She's hilarious! I love hanging out with my parents and Andrew when he was around. We had the most fun just being silly.

It was just Andrew and me, but in 2000, they rescued an exchange student from Sweden whose sponsor family was atrocious. This is her 'adopted' son Daniel on the boys' graduation day! And now, we have family in Sweden too!



Well, and my best friend, Brooke is pretty much her second daughter. I'm not even allowed to do puzzles with them.

Last but not least, some woman once made an extremely ignorant and prejudiced remark outside of a favorite eatery. My mom not only told her she was wrong, but also why.

And that's my mom. She's the coolest, the cutest and like my classmate used to say, she smells really good!