Monday, January 31, 2011

Here it is the last day January 2011 and I am not sure where the past 4 months have gone since I last wrote in this blog. We were very busy - as the previous post pointed out. But the holiday season is especially fun since we became Catholics. The Advent season & Christmas are so much richer and meaningful now than they were before our confirmation. It's hard to describe but I'll try.

We think, pray and reflect on Jesus, his birth, and what that means to us as humans on this earth. We think about others a lot - giving money, gifts, and food to those less fortunate. We pray for others. We pray for peace. We pray deeply for a better world. We simply celebrate every aspect of the Christ child's birth. It's fabulous.

Now we have moved into Ordinary Time; however, there is not much that is ordinary in our lives. We are still deeply involved in RCIA and will be starting up our Servant School again the first weekend of March. But Ordinary Time allows us to reflect on Jesus' specifically and how he moved through the lands preaching about God and gathering followers. I'll never tire of hearing His baptism story - it is so very powerful!

The next season for us in Lent. I love this time of year as well because it is such a great story & history we get to relive every year. It all culminates in the Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday evening. This is the longest Mass of the year - it's hours & hours. But it is so fascinating, colorful, meaningful, rich, and just plain interesting! Candles, an empty alter, special songs, incense (although Ken's not a big fan of that), the baptisms & confirmations of the new Catholics, and the transformation of the Church from drop to full of color during the Mass. It's such a beautiful time - and those hours go by so quickly that I am sad when it's done.

To close this long post, I just want all to know that Ken & I are doing fine. I fly down to Boise earlier this month to see Deakin while he was home for his mid-tour R&R. I also got to Brenton, Sebastain & Nicole. It was a fabulous trip - thanks Ken! But I returned sick...sick as a dog. I came home on Monday (MLK holiday) and that evening knew I was getting sick. Both of the kids had gone to the Urgent care & they were told they had a virus. So I figured that's what I had and since I knew how fast it spread, I chose to stay home all that week. Thankfully I was able to work from home for most of the time. But Tuesday & Wednesday I ran a pretty high temp but it broke Wednesday night and I started to feel better. Ken came down with the cough but nothing else. So far it has not gone into a lung infection - so keep him in your prayers.

Deakin, on the other hand, had to go to the ER on Thursday night (before flying back to Iraq on Saturday) with a 104 temp! He was one sick man! He had to fly on Saturday and was still feeling poorly when he left. But he is feeling better now so hopefully our winter ills are behind us.

Kara broke her hand a few weeks back and had surgery this past week to have a nail put it (she broke her little finger knuckle into 16 different pieces) to aid it the healing of the bones. She'll have to go back into surgery in about 6 weeks to have it removed. Thankfully Kerem, the love of her life, is taking really good care of her and she is healing pretty well.

Amanda is coming into the home stretch - only about 8 weeks left before she gives birth to her first baby (a boy, tentively named Gabe) around the end of March. We will be flying back in April or so to see them all - we are very excited to welcome grandchild #15 to our beautiful family. God bless all and here's hoping for an early spring!

Until next time....blessings!

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