Sunshine and Light

All Catholic, all the time

We had an awesome weekend, but as my husband said at one point "This is what it's like for outsiders to hang with bike racers." Poor guy, he's not Catholic, but this weekend? Very, very, very Catholic. We headed out for the Fathers of Mercy to see my brother get ordained. But wait! There's more! We attended a confirmation on Friday, and one of the homeschoolers to whom we send books graduated and had her graduation Mass on Sunday. If we could have gotten the baby pre-natally baptized, that was the only thing missing to make this the most Catholic 3 days I've ever spent.

To back up slightly...

We got to Chris's mom's house Thursday night, and at that point I realized that my comfortable travel zone has shrunk from 8 hours in the car to 6. By the time we got out of the car at his mom's house, I was really, really out of it. His mom, was super excited to see us. I'm afraid our energy levels did not match. But a good night's sleep, and I was ready to go. Well more correctly, at 7AM, the dogs were ready to go. They were, after all, at Camp Grandma. Chris's mom has a backyard (!), and a dog with the same energy level as Ginger (!), and treats(!), and another dog's food to eat (!), and why are we wasting time sleeping (!). Anyway, off we went to confirmation, and the first of many receptions. Then back home for a few hours, out to dinner, and a good night's sleep.

Er...until 6AM - Camp Grandma! Must lie under the trees and wait for the squirrellys!

Then it was my brother's ordination. The Fathers of Mercy are in a rural part of Kentucky, so their ordinations aren't combined with those of the general diocese, and are held at a parish that the Fathers of Mercy run. So instead of being the big cathedral ordination, it was a lot more intimate setting. Ah, it was so good to see my brother who has been through an awful lot of stress to get to this point, finally there. It was great to see all of the fathers, and to see the priest who will be pastor at his parish in St Louis, and a friend of my brother's whom Chris and I also consider a friend (Fr Michael) up on the altar. I loved the ceremony. Except for the part where I hit my Mom's purse while sitting down and accidentally set off the recorder. I swear that thing echoed through the church, although in talking to people later, apparently not. And to add to the fun, she didn't know how to turn it off, and it went on for roughly 47 hours. (or a couple of minutes, one of those). We ended up burying it in the bottom of her purse with a Missal over the top in hopes that no one would be able to hear it. And then we giggled periodically for the rest of the Mass. Two take aways from that:
1. Never take a noise making device with you to Mass if you can't turn it off
2. If you do set it off, be cool. Don't cover your face, just act like nothing's going on and hope that no one notices.
Anyway, aside from that, I did pretty well in not crying, and thought that I'd pull this one out. Then they addressed the two ordinands as "Father" at the end of Mass. And I welled up. Curse me, why do I never remember kleenex?

The reception after Mass was cool for a couple of reasons. First of all, I got to see a lot of relatives whom I would not otherwise be able to see while I'm pregnant. And secondly I got to talk to a lot of the people I know from our trips down south. I answered a lot of questions ("When's your due date", and "boy or girl" being the two primaries). It's funny, I was sort of a secondary celebrity at the reception as a result of being pregnant. People were so sweet!

The other cool thing about Saturday was that I had a chance to catch up with my friends Tammie & Sean from Texas. People I most definitely do NOT get to see enough of! Ok, of late, I don't get to see much of anyone, but I really do miss my friends. So I had a chance to hang with them for a while, we went to see the Fathers of Mercy, and the new chapel that they're constructing (very cool!). We sort of just ran errands, and hung out before heading back to the church hall for pizza and KFC and more time with the relatives. Until I just ran out of energy, far, far too early. So we went home, for another good night's sleep.

Until the dogs had to get up. But even they were a little less enthusiastic by this point. Camp Grandma had been starting early and going full tilt, and even though they managed to get up at 6AM, they were beat. Ginger essentially firmed up her new home under the porch, and Fred hung out under the tree and hoped the squirrels would just drop into his mouth.

Sunday AM was hang out time. Chris took off for the Bataan bike ride around 11, and his mom and I went to the graduation Mass around 2PM. Then it was home, snoozes, up and on the road.

And now...My head is still spinning, I'm still tired and obviously rambling 2 days after we got in. A great weekend, but I intend to spend the rest of the summer incubating and perfecting my Jabba the Hutt imitation.

Hohohohohooooooo....

Labels: Dogs, pregnancy, Travel

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 2:00 PM