May Crowning.

On Friday, Sarah's school had  May Crowning.  It's a beautiful liturgy  that is led by the 8th graders.

A representative from each grade processes in and place flowers around the statue of Mary.  And then every 8th grader does the same.  At the end of the procession, one 8th grade girl has the honor of crowning Mary.

In addition to readings from the Bible and hymns about Mary, three 8th graders are chosen to read their Marian reflections.  Sarah wrote an excellent reflection and got to read hers during the service.

It was a beautiful service and such a nice way to honor Mary.

I'm waiting for the school photographer to post her official shots but in the meantime, here are the ones I snapped with my phone.

Life lesson learned.

Several weeks ago Sarah went zip-lining with her Girl Scout troop.  She had a blast! Here are a few pictures from the day:

Sarah's other leader, Miss Beth, wasn't able to attend the trip because her mother was in Hospice.  Sadly, Beth's mother passed away that day and the funeral was scheduled for Monday.

All the girls were going and the other leader, Miss Frances, had asked them to wear their vests.

There's one thing you need to know about 13-year-old Girl Scouts.  They actually really enjoy Girl Scouts but they DO NOT want to wear the vest in public.  Sad but true - they enjoy all the things Girl Scouts has to offer but they don't want anyone to know they are Girl Scouts.

Wearing a tan vest with colorful patches in public is not something a 13-year-old girl ever wants to do.  Because, "what if someone seeeeeeeeeeesssssss meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"! (Actual quote from Sarah when she had to put on her vest to sell cookies at the cookie booth.)

All the girls stood together during the graveside service wearing their vests and honestly it was just the sweetest thing to see - they were supporting their leader and the fact that I knew they all would rather be wearing anything other than their vests made it even sweeter. 

Afterwards on the ride home, both Cheyanne and Sarah said they were glad they went even though neither  had not wanted to go.

"Mom, Miss Beth hugged me really hard and told me she was glad we all came because it made her feel better to look over and see us all standing their together.  She didn't know we were coming so it was a nice surprise for her," Sarah told me on the way home.  "I'm glad we went."

I told the girls that no one ever really wants to go to a funeral because funerals are hard and sad and sometimes awkward but everyone is always glad they went.

Both girls nodded their heads in agreement. 

Thankful Thursday - Edition 19

There is so much to be thankful for every day.  Here's this week's list:


1. Air conditioning.  The heat pump that cools the upstairs went out this week (apparently a bug got stuck in it at just the right spot which caused the whole thing to shut down) and we had to get it fixed.  Luckily it was cool enough at night that sleeping with the windows open was just the right temp and we didn't sweat to death but none the less, I will always be thankful for A/C and our friendly repairman Brian. (We have had problems with both the heat pumps starting about a year and a half after we built the house.  By the time we started having problems, the manufacturer said "too bad" it's out of warranty so I see my repairman Brian at least once a year.)

2. I worked my last Teacher Lunch Out at Our Lady of Mercy yesterday.  I am thankful that I have had the time and opportunity to volunteer at this sweet school.  And I am also thankful for lunch afterwards with the other moms who volunteered. And I am also very thankful for the teachers who teach there. 

3.  Before Sarah got her Confirmation roses, I bought these beauties from Lidl.

I will always be thankful for flowers.


4. And speaking of Confirmation,  I am definitely thankful for a wonderful weekend celebrating my sweet Sarah with family.

5. We got our tomatoes and peppers and herbs and flowers planted this weekend.  Dan has been watering ever since because we have had nothing but sunshine for the past week!  Vegetable gardens and sunshine mean school is almost over!  I am thankful for all of the above!

6. Track season is over!  I am thankful that Peter had the experience of running for his high school team.  He didn't make the time cuts to run in regionals or states but I think he will make it next year.  He had a great time hanging out with his friends, he got good exercise and a Bishop McGuinness track hoodie that he can wear as part of his official school uniform.  And now that track is over, I can pick him up from school right after I pick up Sarah.  Back to the normal routine!  I am always thankful for the normal routine!

7. Avocados, tune and mayo!  Mix it all together with salt and pepper and lime juice and you have a delicious high protein, low carb, and extremely filling lunch! Quick, easy, and tasty!

What are you all thankful for this week?

My sweet Sarah and the story of her Confirmation roses.

When Sarah was doing her sacramental preparation for Confirmation, she had to choose her Confirmation saint and write a paper about this person and why she chose them.

She had trouble determining which saint she wanted but after quite a bit of research, she ultimately chose St. Rosaline de Villaneuve. St. Rosaline was a born in France in 1263. Her father was a wealthy noble and the family lived in a castle. Beggars would show up every morning looking for food and even though her father forbid her feeding the beggars, Rosaline did it anyway.  One morning she had bread hidden in the folds of her skirt to take to to the beggars.  Her father stopped her and asked what she was hiding in her skirt.  She told him they were roses that she had just picked but he didn't believe her.  He demanded that she show him and when she opened the folds of her skirt, roses fell out where the bread had been. This is why she is often portrayed in art work with a skirt full of roses.


Sarah was confirmed on Friday night.  Since it was the first Friday of the month, not only did she have Mass at school but she also attended Adoration and Benediction.

As we were rushing in the door from school to eat and get dressed and get ready to head back out to Confirmation, I noticed a large box on the front step.

"Wonder what that is, I thought knowing I hadn't ordered anything recently.

I got the box from the porch and noticed it was from ProFlowers and was addressed to Sarah.

I called for her to come down because she had a package.

"What is it?  Is this for me? Is it flowers for me??"

She ripped into the box and there was the most beautiful bouquet of 24 red roses and a box of 6 giant strawberries from Sharie's Berries that were dipped in chocolate and nuts.

As soon as she realized it was roses, she exclaimed, "MOM!!!! When I was praying at adoration today, I asked Rosaline to pray that God would send me a rose today for my Confirmation!"

St. Rosaline is quite the intercessor as mere hours later, not one but TWENTY FOUR roses were waiting on Sarah!

I teared up when she told me she asked St. Roseline to intercede for her and I love that God not only sent my sweet girl a rose, but two dozen roses.  I also love that the person who sent the roses was Uncle Ron.  Uncle Ron isn't Dan's actual uncle but a friend of Dan's Uncle Bob.  They met and became friends in the seminary. He spent all the major holidays with Dan's family and became part of the family.

Uncle Ron concelebrated our wedding with Uncle Bob and told me that when he saw me walking down the aisle with a bouquet of red roses he knew it was a sign from St. Therese.  Uncle Ron has a great devotion to St. Therese who said, "After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses. I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth. I will raise up a mighty host of little saints. My mission is to make God loved..."  So to me it is even more special that God used him to send the flowers to Sarah.

I am so thankful that God answered Sarah's prayer for a rose on her Confirmation.  To me, it is like Matthew 7:11 coming to life:

"If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" - Matthew 7:11

St. Rosaline de Villaneuve pray for us!

Here is the picture we snapped of Sarah right before we headed out the door.  She grabbed one of the roses and this is the one that we know have pressed between two heavy books and she plans to keep in her Bible.

And here are a few of the professional photos from Confirmation:

Confirmed!

My sweet Sarah is confirmed!

We had a crazy weekend but it was so good.  I picked up Dan's uncle from the airport on Thursday afternoon and the got Sarah from school.

My parents picked Peter up from his track meet and Dan's sister arrived from D.C. And then Dan made it home from work a little early and the fun began.

Cathy and Sarah went to  church to practice for the big event and we all relaxed at home.  When they got back, we had chili (I needed something that was easy to fix, that would keep not knowing when the girls would get home, and that was tasty.  So my famous award winning chili it was!) for dinner and then it was practically bedtime.

The next morning, Cathy drove the kids to school and when she got back we had breakfast and then headed out the door.  We visited Pilot Mountain and had lunch at Snappy Lunch in downtown Mt. Airy.

Then we picked up the kids from school, raced home, ordered and ate pizza and then got dressed and headed to church for Sarah's Confirmation!

We had to be there at 6:00 for the group pictures and then the service started at 7:00.  It was beautiful!  I love singing the Litany of Saints.  The choir was fabulous and there was also someone playing violin who did a wonderful job.

And my sweet girl has been sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

My parents and brother were there too but left before we took the pictures.

After  Mass, we came home and celebrated with my mom's famous chocolate cake and then went to bed because we were tired!

On Saturday morning we were up bright and early because Sarah's middle school was participating in a kick ball tournament with some of the other catholic schools.

We dropped her off and headed to a local farmer's market that was near the park where the kickball tournament was being held.  This farmer's market was fabulous.  It was really large and we ended up being there close to two hours.  Then we ate lunch and went back to the park to watch the final kickball game.

Sarah's team came in third!

On Sunday morning we headed to Mass and then met my parents and brother and uncle for lunch.  Afterwards, Cathy had to head back to D.C. and the rest of us relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

This morning, Dan took his uncle to the airport, I took the kids to school and headed to the grocery store and just like that, our lovely weekend is over and it's back to life as normal.

I'm so thankful for the great weekend we had and for time spent with our family.

And here's hoping the rest of May goes as well!

Thankful Thursday - Edition 18

It's already Thursday and apparently it's also already May!  Whew!  This last full month of school is going to zoom.

Here's a quick list of what I'm thankful for this week.

1. God's protection.  I was in a parking lot the other day when someone started backing out.  I blew my horn and she stopped just shy of hitting me.  It probably would not have caused any damage to my car but nobody's got time for anything like that!  I was very thankful she stopped.  But yesterday, Peter was driving home from track practice and pulled out into traffic.  I screamed STOPPPPPP and he did.  And the car swerved around him and thank goodness because that would have been a huge accident.  He says he looked but I think he only gave a cursory glance and the car was coming up faster than he thought.  Driving with teens is not for the faint of heart and there is a reason I pray every single time I get behind the wheel and every single time Dan pulls out of the driveway. And I think Peter is going to doing a much better job of looking before pulling out onto a busy road. 

2.  We won the track meet!

3.  I'm a big believer that God sends us little things throughout our day to bring us joy  And I am always thankful for those things.  This tiny little cup of triple mocha frappuccino made my morning:

4. The full moon!  Did you guys see it the other night?  It was beautiful!  Peter loves to alert me to a beautiful moon and whenever he says, "Mom, check out the moon tonight."  I always get up and go outside and take a look.

5. My sweet parents.  They are going to pick Peter up from his track meet this afternoon.  If you will recall this school is an hour away and Dan's uncle is flying in today and I will be getting him from the airport and they will be on Peter pick-up duty.  And Peter is thankful for this as well so he doesn't have to sit at the track meet for an extra 3 hours and then take the hour bus ride back to school and then the 30 minute drive home.

6.  Sunny warm weather!  It is finally spring here.  It's been in the 80s this week and sunny and I'm very thankful.

I told you this was going to be short.  We are gearing up for a big weekend around here!  Sarah's will be confirmed on Friday night and there's a lot to do!

What are you thankful for this week?

We did it!!!

My kids have been on the track team at Our Lady of Mercy for 7 years.  They joined the team our first year there.  Sarah was in 2nd grade and Peter was in 3rd.  Denise, the coach (who was also a new family to the school was in her first year of coaching at Mercy) asked for parent volunteers because almost half of the kids in school participate and you need a lot of help managing that many kids.

I volunteered my time that first year helping with K-4 and basically just wrangled kids - lined them up, told them to listen to the coach, took them to the bathroom, etc.  At the end of that first year, Denise told me her main assistant was leaving because her son was heading to high school and asked me to help her with all the administrative duties.

She loved to coach, she said, but hated emails, and spreadsheets and keeping track of minutiae.  I told her I would be glad to help her as those were things I didn't mind.  In fact, I would rather email 95 families about something than try to get 95 kids in a circle to do warm-ups.

So the next year I helped keep track of fees, forms, spreadsheets, tee-shirt sizes for uniform orders, etc.  and have been doing that ever since.

Denise is originally from Trinidad and came to the US on a track scholarship. Because Denis is a track pro, our school is the one that typically organizes the two regular season track meets for the other catholic schools in the area.  You really need to have a good understanding of track in order to pull off a smooth track meet because it's a lot of work and requires a lot of help and Denise is the woman for the job.

Each year we  head into the conference championships knowing that we have a strong team but each year we get beaten by St. Pius X.  Their school is twice as big as ours and it always felt like a David and Goliath situation. (I would like to add here that the other schools in the conference are our size but because Denise is so dynamic and so outgoing and willing to go from grade to grade asking everyone to participate, our team is as big as the Pius team.  So even though our school is smaller and the talent pool isn't as deep, Denise manages to put together a very competitive team each year.)

Denise approaches every year with so much excitement for the new track season and always with the thought that "this might be the year".  But each year we came up short.  Until this year.

Our school was the host for the conference championships and we hired a timing company instead of the normal Dads with stop watches.  Because Dads with stopwatches aren't precise and there are always so many races that end in a photo finish and parents of track runners like to argue with the dads with stopwatches and even though it's a bunch of catholic schools, it can still get very heated.
The timing company was worth every penny because they had film of who crossed the finish line first.   If there was a question, all you had to do was check the film.

At the end of the meet, K-4 standings were announced from worst to best.  Out of the 7 teams, we were second and Pius was 1st.  5-8 standings were then announced from worst to best.  Out of the 7 teams, we were first and Pius was second.

And literally, we ALL held our breaths as the overall winner was announced.

And when they announced Pius was SECOND cheers erupted all over the track because that meant WE WON!  And these cheers weren't just from our team but from the others as well because Pius wins everything every year (not just track but all the other sports as well - so annoying.)

It was  such a great moment.  And as happy as I was for the kids, I was twice as happy for our coach.

And to make things even more exciting, Peter was working this track meet as the flag guy at the start line so he was able to celebrate with us even though he wasn't officially on the winning team.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

My girl getting it!

Victory!!

Denise with the 8th graders.

Denise kissing the trophy! This might be my favorite picture from the day!

Is it summer yet??

Yesterday was Peter's last regular season track meet.  And I'm not going to lie.  I'm glad.  Track meets are long and pretty boring and the weather this season has been horrible.

Yesterday was the worst run track meet of the entire season.  There were only 3 small teams competing.  It should have taken no more than 2 hours to run this meet.  It really should have been over in an hour and a half.  The meet had a scheduled start time of 4:15.  Dan was able to go because he got home from Montreal at  3:00.  I still had to pick up Sarah from school, run a quick errand and then we headed to the meet.

The school that was hosting the meet was 45 minutes from our house.  We arrived there a little before 5:00 thinking that Peter would probably be about to start the 400M.  But no.  They were still doing the field events.  And these schools were so small that the only field event was the running long jump. 

ONE HOUR AFTER THE PUBLISHED START TIME THEY WERE STILL ON THE RUNNING LONG JUMP WHICH IS THE FIRST EVENT!!!

Y'all.  I was a little annoyed. 

And even odder was the fact that our coach and one of our dad's was running that event. 

They finally(over one hour after the start time) got started with the first race.  There were some events that took 10 to 15 minutes to even get ready to run it.  And when there were multiple heats of the same event, it was still a good 5 to 10 minutes between the heats.  WHAT THE HECK!!????

And it was cloudy when a chance of rain yesterday and of course, because it was taking forever to get this meet going, it started to rain.  All  the runners in the 200 (and that's a good portion of all the runners) were huddled under some trees waiting for the event to start.  All of the heats of the 200 where run in the rain and not just a drizzle - it was pouring! 

The cancelled the last two events because of the rain and we finally left there around 7:45.  I'm not sure what was going on.  Perhaps their coach wasn't there and people who don't know how to run a track meet were running it?  It was very frustrating.

The conference championships are next week and Peter was telling me that he didn't think he would be going since they only take the fastest three runners from each school for each event.  And he definitely didn't make the cut for the 400 and was close for the 200 but there are a lot of guys that can run that one really fast.

I've spent all season wondering why the coach didn't put Peter in the 100 since he's so slow at the 400.  Last night Peter was telling us  that the coach might want him to run the 100 in the conference championships.  (Peter ran his 200 really well last night in the rain. His fastest time all season.) 

When I heard this I was a little bummed out.  The conference championships are on the same day as Sarah's confirmation practice.  Dan's sister will be coming in because she's Sarah's sponsor.  Dan's uncle is flying in to con-celebrate and I think I'm picking him up from the airport that afternoon.

I think the conference meet starts at noon and the 100 is one of the earlier races so Peter said that he would want to leave when he was done.  That's probably not going to happen since there are a lot of moving parts next Thursday.

The logistics of next week are already crazy so I was hoping that we could remove a track meet  from the equation. Because in addition to track meet, confirmation practice,  and confirmation, while we have our guests here over the weekend Sarah will be participating in an area wide catholic middle school kick ball tournament.  And Sarah has a big group project that is due the following Monday that has somehow fallen through the cracks.  We are currently trying to figure out when to have the group over next week to finish it. 

All of this is making me ask: Is it summer yet? 

Thankful Thursday - Edition 17

It's Thankful Thursday again. What have I been thankful for this past week?

1.  Showers!  I was able to take a nice long shower last Friday and haven't looked back since.  A week of baths was the worst!

2. All the pretty birds.  I have spotted a bunch of blue birds and cardinals and some yellow finches in the back yard this past week along with all the robins and that can only mean that even if the weather has been less than lovely, spring really is here.

3.  And as much as I don't like alllllllllllll the rain we've been having, it really has made everything so green and all the flowering bushes and trees have really been putting on a show the last few weeks.

4.  And Lidl is still impressing me with their affordable flower selections:

$6 for these lovely lillies.

$10 for these gorgeous tulips!

5. The forecast for Sunday is perfect for the conference track meet: 70 and sunny with 0% chance of rain!  Please Lord, let it be!

6. Dan comes home tonight from his trip to Montreal.  I am always thankful when his trips don't take him away over the weekend.

7. Sarah had New Villain Night at the high school last night.  She is very excited for middle school to be over and for high school to start. She got to choose her electives, pick her summer reading book, set up her school email account, and she even got to talk with the swim coach and the volleyball coach. I am very thankful our kids are able to attend this school.  Peter has had a great Freshman year so far and for that too, I am extremely thankful!

8. Lunch with my bestie!  Yesterday was Jennifer's birthday and my schedule cleared up at the last minute and I was able to eat lunch with her.  I didn't think I was going to have time but I got all my work done early and was able to visit with her.  I am always thankful to get to spend time with her.

What are you thankful for this week?