It's been a bittersweet Mother's Day for a Penticton, B.C. woman who survived seven weeks stranded inside a van in the remote mountains of Nevada.

Rita Chretien, 57, is spending Mother's Day with her family at a hospital in Idaho where she is recovering from seven weeks with little food and water. Hospital officials say she is "very upbeat" and doing well.

Her son, Raymond Chretien, says he and other family members are "rejoicing" for being able to spend Mother's Day with her.

Raymond told CTV News he had braced for his mother to be in bad shape, but said she looked "excellent."

"I wouldn't have hardly known anything had happened to her. It's just her, just the way I remember," he said. "It's amazing."

But that joy is tempered as Chretien's husband, Albert, 59, is still missing after leaving the van more than six weeks ago to try to find help.

Ken Dey, a spokesman for St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center, says Rita Chretien managed to keep a small meal down overnight and is progressing at a rate doctors are happy with.

Chretien and her husband had been travelling from B.C. to Las Vegas when they found themselves on an old logging road and their van got stuck in mud.

Rita Chretien says she survived on melted snow, small amounts of trail mix, a few hard candies and prayer.

Her son said she passed the time by reading her bible and resting.

"She had books, she read a couple of books twice," he said.

The search continues for Albert, who set out on foot with little protection from the elements. The mountainous area where their van was found has faced weeks of snow, rain and chilly conditions.

Sheriff's deputies from Nevada and Idaho were back out searching the remote Nevada wilderness Sunday.

On Saturday, the deputies searched along the north border of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, but bad weather prevented them from using aircraft Saturday.

While it seems unlikely that Chretien will have survived all this time, sheriff's Det. James Carpenter said crews were not yet ready to turn the rescue mission into a recovery operation.

The couple left their home in Penticton, B.C., on March 19 to attend a trade show in Las Vegas. They had last been seen in surveillance video captured at a food mart in Baker City, Oregon. They apparently took a wrong turn sometime later and ended up stranded on the logging road.

The couple's family reported them missing on March 30, when they failed to return from their trip as planned.

Al and Rita had a paper map and GPS during their trip, but their family believes they underestimated the conditions in the mountainous terrain of Nevada – and may have taken a wrong turn.