VENTURA : Harbor a Big Family Draw on Mother’s Day

Five-month-old Melina Powell didn’t know it was supposed to be her mom’s day off.

But despite the infant’s squirming, her parents, Dan and Cynthia Powell of Ventura, said it was their best Mother’s Day.

“This is our first one with a child,” said Cynthia Powell, cradling the infant over her shoulder on the patio at Cafe de La Riviera in the Ventura Harbor early Sunday afternoon. “It’s been a long-awaited Mother’s Day.”

Dan Powell said he planned all morning how best to pamper his wife and infant.

“We started with mimosas, then enjoyed a brunch and the sun by the marina with some Dixieland jazz,” said Dan Powell, an engineer for undersea recovery projects.

Hundreds of others had the same idea Sunday as they celebrated Mother’s Day at Ventura Harbor. Every restaurant patio was filled with families as tunes from the Main Street Dixieland Jazz band filled the air. After a series of weekend cloudbursts, temperatures rose into the high 60s under mostly clear skies.

Every year about this time, Gregg Simon of Malibu takes his wife somewhere she’s never been.

“We do it every Mother’s Day, get away somewhere and treat Mom,” said Simon, a stockbroker who spent the weekend in Ventura County with his wife, Lisa, and their two children, Sarah-Jayne, 2 1/2, and Jordan, 5 months.

“I like Ventura,” he said, a few feet from where Ken Layton of the Main Street Dixieland Jazz band was belting out some old favorites. “We’d been by here many times, but never to visit.”

Layton said he and the band play the harbor area about twice a month. On Sunday afternoon, he found himself singing “You gotta see your Momma every night, or you won’t see your Momma at all.”

“We play that one all the time,” he said during a break. “We’re trying to work up tunes with women’s names in them to celebrate Mother’s Day.

“Next we’ve got ‘Sweet Lorraine’ and ‘Marie,’ ” he said. “Those go way back.”

Down at Bay Queen Harbor Cruises, 10-year-old Shannon Spaulding was waiting in line to rent a paddle boat with her mother, Leslie.

She said she couldn’t afford the $20 to pay for her mom’s boat rental, but she had made her mother a handbasket adorned with sea shells in honor of the day.

“It was really beautiful,” said Leslie Spaulding, a letter carrier from Ventura.