Mother's Day -- A Family Outing

It's Mother's Day, today, and my holiday.
Not so for a group of junior high school kids belonging to some club -- perhaps tennis, perhaps track and field, perhaps ping pong, could be any -- who are out running alongside the road.
We pack up our three kids in our family car and head to Heisogen Park 平草原公園 in Shirahama Town. Heisogen has open space, lovely flowers, a fitness/walking path, and today, lots of kindergarten children. Two schools have their annual spring school trip　遠足 or ensoku. One is a Christian kindergarten called Kinan Youchien 紀南幼稚園, and the other is a Buddhist Kindergarten called Uenoyama Youchien　上ノ山幼稚園.　Kinan kindergarten is operated through the local Catholic Church, who has a fairly strong presence in Japan despite not having converted a great number people.
I have found that most Japanese consider themselves both Shinto (a sort of druidic or animistic native belief that god is manifested in nature, that there are many local gods worshipped in every town, village, and house) and Buddhist -- the latter brought through China and Korea to Japan. The two, instead of having warred with one another, blended it seems, and for a long time, co-existed -- shrine alongside temple -- peacefully up to the Meiji Restoration.
Today, the parents have probably played a couple games with their respective kindergarten staffs and children. They have spread their picnic sheets in groups in the shade about the park.
The children have played in the grass, like mine did, chasing bugs, beetles, roley-poleys, bees and a kind of stinging caterpillar called 毛虫 or kemushi.
My son plays soccer with me. My two-year-old daughter chases bugs, collects sticks and inedible berries. We scare small, trap spiders hiding in the bushes.
Noone seems to be celebrating Mother's Day, like we are. Actually, we are just celebrating our time together. And maybe, that's what everyone is doing, not following the auspices of a greeting card/florist holiday.
There are thousands of roses on display in a large garden. We walk among many different colors and sizes. We take a picture, my wife holding the baby, the other two posing but really anxious to play in the dirt, to climb wooden outdoor obstacle course equipment, to slipslide into the mental memorybook of our once and happy time together.