Be it ever so humble…
… there’s no place like home! We arrived home last night!
Over the last three weeks, we have traveled through 11 different states and over 5,000 miles. We had a WONDERFUL time!!
It was definitely a trip to remember! It was such a blessing to be able to attend the Ordination and First Masses of my hubby’s youngest brother, visit lots of family and friends, and even meet some new friends as well!
We got to see so much of the country: Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, and although I may be a bit bias, there really is no place like home! It is so beautiful here, and we really do have great weather! (Tornado warnings and watches scare me… As well as shingles flying off the roofs of hotels! And 116 degrees is really just too HOT! Eeek!) If only the Latin Mass was available here, it would be perfect!
Thank you all for your prayers for our health (We have all fully recovered from the flu, Deo Grátias!) and safe travels (I was very happy not to witness an actual tornado!). I also appreciate so many of you writing to let us know that we were missed! I missed you all too! I pre-scheduled a few posts before we left on May 24th, and then tried to get online the first week or so of our trip, but my internet access was very limited, and so I haven’t been back online for awhile. I have many emails to respond to, and will try to respond to any questions soon! Some of you have been very busy… I have 649 unread blog posts in my Google Reader — a clear indication that I am trying to read too many blogs! It may take me a little while to get to them all! 🙂
Today I will be busy unpacking, doing laundry, sorting mail, grocery shopping, and enjoying our beautiful weather! But, hopefully, I will be able to catch up with you all soon, and share a bit about our trip! Despite the flu, I still ended up taking over 1,000 pictures! Aye-yi-yi!! I promise I won’t post them all! 😉
OH! It’s so good to be home! See you all soon! God Bless!
Wordless Wednesday ~ Daddy training his “Altar Boys”
Okay… So this post isn’t going to be totally wordless. 😉 I had a chance to get online real quick, and wanted to add that Captain got to serve (along with a whole bunch of other boys!) his very first Tridentine Mass on Sunday. He LOVED it!! I think that my hubby got a few pictures which I will try to share sometime soon…
Unfortunately, I missed seeing him serve, since I had to stay at the hotel with a sick baby. The flu has hit our family. At first I thought it was just the heat, but now I am sure that it is the flu. Let me just say, I have never experienced anything quite like this… Have you ever tried to travel across multiple states in a minivan while 3 children are extremely sick with the flu (both ends!), the baby is recovering–sort of–but his diapers don’t seem to work AT ALL, while sick with the flu yourself?!
At least it has provided many opportunities to grow in patience and practice various Works of Mercy, but at this point, I would appreciate any prayers you could send our way!
Thank you SO MUCH and God Bless!
Another Anniversary…
My husband has been blessed with ALL three of his brothers being called to serve Our Lord as priests. Only his sister (the oldest in the family) and my husband were called to the married life. It is pretty awesome to have them all for brother-in-laws. They are such great role models for my children. Speaking of children, with three priests out of their five children, my in-laws are not lacking for grandchildren. They have nine so far!
Today is the 2nd Anniversary of the second son in the family’s ordination.
This brother-in-law’s favorite saint is Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. I couldn’t agree more!!! St. Therese wrote a beautiful prayer for priests. Please say this prayer today for Father! God Bless!
Today…
…our oldest son will receive his First Holy Communion. Please remember him in your prayers!
He has been preparing for this day for a long time, and is so very excited!
It may be awhile before I am able to share some photos, so here are a few video stills of Captain and Rascal serving The Holy Mass & Benediction!
(Thanks to our good friend for the photos!)
Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from Christ’s side, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O good Jesus, hear me. Within Thy wounds hide me. Suffer me not to be separated from Thee. From the malicious enemy defend me. In the hour of my death call me. And bid me come unto Thee, that I may praise Thee with Thy saints and with Thy angels forever and ever. Amen.
Don’t forget to tune in…
…to EWTN to watch the Fraternity of Saint Peter Priestly Ordinations, May 30th, at 11Am Eastern/8AM Pacific.
His Eminence Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, will confer the Priestly ordinations. His Excellency, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz will be sitting in choir.
Please keep the following ordinandi in your prayers as they ascend to the altar of Our Lord:
~ Rev. Mr. Dennis Gordon, FSSP
~ Rev. Mr. Jared McCambridge, FSSP
~ Rev. Mr. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP
~ Rev. Mr. Justin Nolan, FSSP
O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priest, Father [N].
Give him a deep faith, a bright and firm hope, and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of his priestly life.
In his loneliness, comfort him. In his sorrows, strengthen him. In his frustrations, point out to him that it is through suffering that the soul is purified, and show him that he is needed by the Church, he is needed by souls, he is needed for the work of redemption.
O loving Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your son who is close to you because of his priestly ordination, and because of the power which he has received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs him so much.
Be his comfort, be his joy, be his strength, and especially help him to live and to defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy. Amen.
Wordless Wednesday ~ My Girls
Altar-ation
This is so cool!
“FSSP transform a modernistic free-standing altar into a very beautiful High Altar. The church that this took place in is in France and is now operated by the Fraternity of St. Peter. The complete time for this “Altar-ation” was just about 15 minutes!”
NFP vs. Contraception VII
Yeah!! They have done it again! Here is another “short commercial comparing NFP and Contraception directed, written, acted, and edited by Catholic seminarians.”
I posted a few of my favorites from this series last year, but you can view them all here!
P.S. Gotta love Bloggers new schedule post feature! 😉
“My Trip Journal”
I had so much fun putting together Trip Journal’s for the children!
If you have any summer trips coming up, this is a fun and easy way give them something to do during the drive, as well as provide a nice keepsake of the trip!
I started with downloading and printing out the Trip Journal template from Simply Charlotte Mason. A big THANK YOU to Elizabeth for sending me over there the other day. I had been planning on making a notebook for the trip, but finding this trip journal really simplified the process for me!
The Trip Journal includes the following sections:
- The Route We Took: For this section, I printed out various State Coloring Pages online for each state that we will be visiting. I also included a few pages from this great coloring book.
- Neighbors We Saw: In this section I included an Outline Map of the United States. As the children see license plates, or meet people, from various states they can color in the correct state on the map! This will be great reinforcement, since we have been studying States & Capitals this year.
- My Trip Journal: I printed out Geography Notebooking Pages from here and here, and then added them to the journal.
- My Trip Budget: I only included this section in Captain’s journal. Rather than give Captain a reward with his accumulated “Reward Certificates”, his tutor cashed them in for a bit of spending money! He is SO excited! He will report back to her after the trip on how it was spent. 🙂
- The Trip in Pictures: Here I inserted a number of blank pages to add pictures to when we get back, in addition to little mementos from the trip!
To finish it off I printed a cover page in Word titled “My Trip Journal” on card stock, and let the kids color/decorate it however they wanted. I then took the books to Staples to be spiral bound. “That was easy!” An easy way to lose two hours of precious packing time as I waited for them to unjam the pages from their machine!! (I nearly died when I walked back in and saw one employee yanking on the machine, and the other yanking on all my hard work! Captain’s Trip Journal!) In the end they turned out nice though, the binding looks great, and the kids can’t wait to get started on them…
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way!”- Dr. Suess
and Corpus Christi Sunday!
13 things I am looking forward to this month!
13 Things that I am looking forward to this month!(It’s going to be hard to limit it to thirteen!)
- I am looking forward to my brother in laws ordination to the priesthood. If you’d like, you can watch it on EWTN May 30th at 11:00 AM Eastern/8:00 AM Pacific! I’m so excited!!
- I am looking forward to receiving those wonderful First Blessings, which contain plenary indulgences, from the newly ordained priests!
- I am looking forward to the newly ordained Father’s First Mass…(this is going to be confusing, THREE Father [last name]’s in the Family!!!!)
- I am looking forward to Captain’s First Holy Communion! We begin a novena in preparation TODAY!!!
- I am looking forward to visiting with the Carmelite Nuns! I love them so much, they are all so sweet! (OK… Here’s a quick story about the nuns. During our first visit with them, May 23rd 2004, on the occasion of Fathers First Mass, Twinkle Toes was only 10 months old, and Mother Superior let me send her back through the turn (a device in cloistered monasteries and convents that shields the visitor from the monk or nun, but permits one to pass notes or small objects in and out). It was so cute! Normally, you or I would not be aloud inside the walls of a cloistered convent, under the penalty of excommunication, without the permission of the bishop, but an infant cannot commit mortal sin, and is therefore excluded from this! They passed her around for about 20-30 minutes on the other side of the grill, where I could see her, and then I went back to the turn to get her back. I knocked to let them know I was waiting, and then I just heard giggling. A couple minutes later, it started to turn and sitting inside was TT’s shoes! They had kept my baby, and sent me back her shoes. Eventually they sent her back to me! Anyhow, that was her first visit to the Carmel… I wonder if someday she will feel called back?)
- I am looking forward to taking the kids to the Zoo!
- I am looking forward to seeing all my in-laws, and my kids being able to play with their cousins… ALL my kids cousins live out of state!
- I am looking forward to Snuggles being able to meet his Grandparents!
- I am looking forward to seeing the boys faces light up when they get to see the bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex at a Natural History Museum!
- I am looking forward to spending time at my hubby’s childhood home and parish.
- I am looking forward to visiting my Grandparents, my children’s GREAT-Grandparents!
- I am looking forward to eating out, and not having to do many dishes!
- And last of all, I am looking forward to taking lots of pictures to share with you all next month!
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here
and View More Thursday Thirteen Participants here.
In the meantime, I am going to be busy, so my blogging is going to be non-existent lighten up for awhile.
Speaking of lightening up, the song used in this video is from one of my favorite singers, Marie Bellet. I can so relate with her music! I posted an actual music video of hers awhile back in this post…
“Well I don’t know who started this, and I don’t even care… But the pressures getting to me and I got to get some air…” Just listen to the song!
Seeing this video made me disappointed that we will be missing our local Family Camp with the Fathers of Mercy. They are such wonderful priests! Ah! So much to do, and just not enough time ~ hopefully next year…
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