oh bother. blog

I’m leaving tonight for a girls’ weekend in Cape May with my mom, aunts, cousins and Holden. Going to Cape May has become a bi-annual tradition for us. We go every Mother’s Day and every October, over what would be my Nanny’s birthday.

Long story short: my Nanny loved going to Cape May with her daughters. In 2011, we all had plans to take her to Cape May for Mother’s Day. She died a week before our trip. We decided that we would all still go to celebrate her life and to spread her ashes on the beach (shh, I’m pretty sure that’s illegal).

During that first trip, we all decided to do something else to honor her: we each got a tattoo of a ladybug. Nanny loved ladybugs; she thought they were her lucky charms. So now we all have Nanny’s lucky charms with us forever. We’re The Ladybug Girls.

Since Nanny’s death, we see ladybugs everywhere. The first time we visited Cape May for Nanny’s birthday, there were hundreds of ladybugs swarming the rocks near where we spread her ashes. Who ever heard of ladybugs on the beach? For my cousin’s daughter’s birthday, we found a ladybug inside the cake box. There was a ladybug at the pool the first time Holden went swimming. Ladybugs are our reminder that Nanny is always with us.

I can’t wait for another fun weekend with The Ladybug Girls and to spend my first Mother’s Day in a place I love with Holdy. Here’s hoping you get to spend your Mother’s Day with the ones you love.

All photos from the camera of my super talented cousin, Katlyn Marie.