Pennsylvania is a Beautiful Place

And that's all I'm gonna say,

'Cause it took me forever to download these pictures

And this is Wordless Wednesday...



My sis, Nina



My cousin, Mick, on "Quid" (on horseback tour of battlefields)



Me on "Rascal"



The Dobbins House, Gettysburg -- the host inn of our B&B adventure.
Our little cottage was next door.

Inside the Dobbins House



A couple pretty house down the street from our B&B
above and below...





One of the Gen'l Lee memorials



Theresa and I would like to print this shot out to use for stationary.  It looks
misty due to the rain falling the day it was taken.



A B&B in the heart of Gettysburg...



One of the twin sycamores.  This "witness tree" is one of a pair that can be seen in Civil War era photographs -- and appear to have been just as tall and healthy then as they are now.



The corner of our breakfast table at our B&B...


OK....  so not quite wordless.  I ended up staying up with Anna past bedtime -- which I'd hoped to participate in after these pictures finally all posted.  But right at the end of night prayers, Anna started feeling sick.... and so here I am, adding captions in between vomiting episodes...  See how I can multi-task?:)   Don't know of anyone else who's been sick out our way, but hope we're not on the front end of a lollapaloozer.  We're all downing our Sambu Guard and Ecchinacea...  Here's hoping and praying...

So, By All Reports...

* William didn't sleep for fourteen nights in a row while I was gone.
* They all ate pizza every night.
* They rode their bikes every afternoon with Daddy to Timbuktoo and back.
* William, who rode behind Daddy in the pull-behind, was the most exhausted of the group after biking.

* The house looked like the site of a nuclear disaster until right before I got home.

* All the laundry was caught up and the socks matched (but Gabe wore one black and one white sock to Mass this morning).
* Everyone was clean and tidy and the girls' hair was fixed pretty for picture day last Thursday (proof of that when the pictures come back... I hope.)
* And the big news of October -- son number three, Jonathan, is very, very happy after having been received into the postulancy at the seminary on the feast of the Divine Maternity, October 11th!    God bless him and his brother, fellow seminarian, Brother Pius (Dominic), and help them listen closely for the Will of God, and, with the help of their Order's patroness, the Mother of God, fulfill all that He asks of them both!

PS:  Had a wonderful time with my sis and cousin exploring Gettysburg, but I'm so glad to be home!  Boy does my own bed feel good!  And I sure did miss all these little faces!
PPS:  Notes on our travels and lots of pics coming soon!  Check out the above header picture, though, while I finish downloading and posting, and see what you can find.  This was taken toward the woods behind Little Round Top, just south of Gettysburg.  And if you happen to spy what we spied, please know that this is a candid shot; absolutely no photoshopping was done on this picture. Let me know if you see anything unusual! (Not my name in the corner -- but something more amazing!  Keep in mind, this is on a major Civil War battlefield...)

Checklist

Bags packed
 --  Everything Michelle owns * Check
      + the schoolwork for English Lit and Biology that she did over the summer * Check
 --  Enough clothes and shoes for me for a week * Check
 --  Toothbrushes * Check
 --  All other toiletries including hair clips and curling iron (which we girls use to "uncurl") * Check
 -- Missals and chapel veils and reading material * Check

Missives collected to deliver
 -- The notebook Fr. G. left at our chapel a couple weeks ago * Check
 -- Gifts of extra administrative binders from the Sisters at our school to the Sisters at Michelle's school * Check
 -- Kevin's suit coat that Dan accidentally picked up thinking it was his * Check
 -- Several donated computers and printers that Kevin wants to go through to see if they're any better than the ones he's got  * Check
 -- Two bushels of sweet corn for my brothers in Denver * Will pick up on the way
 -- A bushel of Palisade peaches to split up between my Mom and sisters * Will pick up on the way
 -- Hugs and kisses from everyone to be doled out to everyone we meet on the way * Check

Prayers said before leaving
 --  Mass and reception of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrment * Check
 -- Confession * check
 -- Seven-day candle lit * check
 -- Blessing from Father B. * check


We are READY to GO!

Where:
On our way to Omaha this morning, Michelle and I.  Her first day of school is August 17th, so we hope to get there by Monday, in time for Mass in Omaha on Monday, the Feast of the Assumption.  Then Shell and I will get her settled in at the Boarder House, and hang around drinking Starbux and enjoying a lack of a schedule until Wednesday -- at which time, I will scrounge around Omaha looking for my son, Jon, whom I will then hijack from all his friends for a couple of days. ;0)  (Look out, Jon!)  Then, I'm on my way home, via Denver, where I get to spend a couple days hanging around with my siblings, and my parents, and my son, Kevvy (whom I hope to go hiking Boulder Falls with next Saturday...).  So, until, next week sometime!:  Toodaloo and many blessings! 

Surfin' Thursday

Surf -- surf/sərf/

Noun: 1) The mass or line of foam formed by waves breaking on a seashore or reef: "the roar of the surf".

Verb: 2) Ride on the crest of a wave, typically toward the shore while riding on a surfboard: "learning to surf".  3) Move from site to site on the Internet: "She spent her idle moments surfing the web".




Little Boogie Board Girl, Theresa Philomena (12)




I grew up within a few miles of the beach, but didn't grow up with Boogie Boards.  They weren't the thing I guess on the Atlantic coast. But when Dan was a kid growing up in southern California, knowing how to maneuver them was a given, a right of passage.  If you didn't own a surfboard, you at least had a boogie board.  And you knew how to use it.  Dan can still ride a mean wave, belly down on a boogie board.

 I grew up a Virginia Beach girl, though.  In Virginia it was customary to bring a book, a blanket, an umbrella, and a picnic basket to the beach.  Which still works for me. And now that I'm a Mommy, I guard the post and take care of everyone's glasses and cell phones, too -- and mind that the flip flops don't float out to sea.  I slather sun screen on anything that moves and wash sand out of eyes.  I even record the fun for posterity -- but I do not ride boogie boards.  I have this notion that dignity is a terrible thing to waste...  But the children aren't shy; most of them gave it a try -- in some way or another. Cathy and William are sand pipers; they prefer to stay on the shore, but most of the kids took to the wave-riding thing like fish to water (uh, so to speak...). 

So, anyway, armed to the top of my computer's memory with photos from our summer vacation, I'm throwing a beach party today. :)

And here, to get things rolling, are some examples of surfing definitions 1 and 2...

"Follow me, kids.  I'll show ya how to use this thing!"
(Big brother, Kevvy, with Anna and Theresa)

Kevin Christopher (21) and Theresa

Theresa solo

Good friend, Brenda B., with Michelle Frances (16)

L-R: Theresa, Michelle, Kevvy. (You HAVE to click this one to enlarge it; it's hilarious, and Michelle is going to KILL me when she sees that I've shared it... but I just couldn't resist. ;0) Look how she's caught this wave! Look at the expression my camera caught!

Gabe's  Boogie Board Method:  

Wait for iiit......  Wait for iiiiitt....



And there he goes!


 William's Boogie Board Method:

Never goes anywhere, but does it with style.

The Real Surfing Pros:

Sharks or dolphins?  What do you think?  Dolphins, we're pretty sure.  But, um, I made the kids get out of the water, anyway...

* Now,  for some web surfing fun...  Surf the day away and never get wet!  A few of my favorite internet surf beaches:

Babble's Top 50 Mom Craft Blogs
(I have spent HOURS visiting these amazing, creative sites!  Great links, great ideas and tutorials!)

The Catholic Blog Directory
(An extensive, but basic listing of links -- good place to troll for kindred spirits)

The Catholic New Media Awards
(Because you never know what or who you'll find there.)

The Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards

(Because whatever you find there is irreverently funny -- Warning: NOT for easily offended or melancholic Catholics!) 

Frugal Catholic Mommy

(Great tips and lots of links to money saving coupons and contests!)

Happy Hearts at Home
(Alexandra always has the best links for frugal home schooling sources and other wonderful things)


Skywatch Friday

(For weekly glimpses of beautiful photography and beautiful skies all over the world)


Snapshots Around the World
(A new theme each week connects photographers around the globe. Never fails to delight!)

Sepia Saturday
(A weekly jaunt through history.  Meet folks around the country who share antique photos and the stories behind them.  If you love history and love old photos, you'll love these!)

No excuse to be bored -- even a thousand miles from the beach.  Grab that keyboard and jump on in!

* Let me know if there are any fun or useful web resources out there that I'm missing!

*  If you have any fun in the sun photo posts you'd like to add to the beach party, let me know and I'll link them below!





Seven Quick Takes

1.  Having a bit of this lately:

2. For which reason I can completely associate with Simcha's post about the same -- which, if you've ever had insomnia, or been pregnant, or if you just like to laugh, you totally have to go read.  (So, go read -- but come back, ok?)

3. Are you back?  Good!  I'm glad to see you.  Wasn't that hysterical? Anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah...  Because of the lack of zzzzz lately, I find myself careening wildly up and over and around a roller coaster of moods, between having a crazy urge to dance across the living room one minute and collapse on the couch, comatose, the next. Between pulling all my notebooks and files out and spreading them all over my bed to organize for the next school year and then discovering I only have enough brain juice to maybe fold washcloths.  Between gathering up all the littles and herding them up to Cascade Falls for an outing one minute and wondering what the heck I was thinking by the time we got there.  But, still, it was fun.  I survived the hike up.  The kids didn't fall off the cliff.  It was all good.  And we were certainly all better for the excursion.  Though it didn't help a lick to get me to sleep that night.  Here are some pics:



The bottom of Cascade Falls
The Little Falls



Anna



Gabey



William

Cathy

Michelle

Theresa

Heading up the trail to the Big Falls

Cascade Falls
The Big Falls
The Real Thing

Playing in the spray and the pools at the bottom

Climbing up

Way up.
(Yes, that's Dan with William way up there...)

Up to the cave.
Can you see the little cave?
Can you see them all in it?

There they are.
As seen by my camera's zoom.

But here they are in the real life, big picture.

And here they are after they came down.
Playing in the spray.
Soaking wet.

And safe back down again.
Thank-you, God.

4.  Which reminds me about worrying.  You know, like how mothers sometimes do.  And confidence. Like what kids are so full of. 

We keep seeing this tee shirt in the mountain gift shops around here:

Nails it, huh?  Not always, but sometimes, us old-timers (or, more correctly, I guess I should call myself a "middle ager" -- or something like that) actually do have hindsight that has, over time, wrapped around to foresight.  And, when you've been kicking around the old planet a little while and slipped off enough ledges and been blindsided by enough big waves, you come to know that you almost never fully understand the situation.  When this finally sinks in -- if you're lucky -- that which used to be confidence turns to caution.  And that which you feel for those who haven't figured it out yet is worry.  Just so you know, kids.  We have full confidence that we'll worry even more before it's all said and done.

5.  Which reminds me of intrepid William the Conqueror who

                       dared the sea to catch him...

And it did.

Sometimes we have to accept when something really is bigger than we are.

6.  Like getting old.  In my recent bi-polar-zombie-like state, especially in the wee hours of the morning, when I'm pondering things like how my hips creak when I roll over and how I don't think I used to always miss when I slapped at mosquitoes, I think of things like the aging process.  And how it really sucks.  (Yeah, that's slang, but perfectly descriptive slang even for an old timer like me.) And there's nothing I can do to stop it.  It's like the tide eroding the coast.  You can shore things up, you can decorate the edges with brightly colored umbrellas, you can haul away the seaweed... 

You can try to keep your feet dry and the sand out of your bathing suit...

But... Now where was I going with this?  Oh, yes...  on to the last quick take, number seven.

7.  Where I get serious and remember that, truly, we are all destined once to live and then -- the four final things.  A good friend died this week.  Someone I saw nearly every day.  This has never happened to me before, which, I realize makes me very innocent in the way of the world at this late date.  I loved my grandparents, but their deaths didn't impact my world in a practical way because we never saw them more than once a year.  The same is true of friends and other relatives that have passed away in my memory.  When our baby, Matthew, died in utero, I had known him in a real way for six and a half months as his mother, but he had not yet become part of my real daily life.  So, this death in very close proximity has been a rather hard one for me to bear.  Any day I attended Mass, I saw my friend.  And had coffee and conversation with her afterward.  I wish I had been there more often than I was.  For many reasons. 

 My friend was not a young woman, but she was vital, intelligent, and filled with energy; she had lived an extraordinary, purposeful, faith-filled life; she mothered sixteen children and loved many, many grandchildren; she literally built a faith community by her determination, hard work, and prayer; she was respected, admired, and loved -- dearly -- by everyone who was blessed to know her.  Her example and her faith has influenced me more than anyone's I have ever known, and because I only got to know her a few short years, I have to say I feel a little gypped that I couldn't benefit still more by her friendship and her counsel. I will miss her more than I think I even know yet.   But,  I have little doubt that if this dear soul is not already seeing the face of God, she will be very soon.  There's no greater joy than that, and so my sadness is really more for myself.  I'll miss her. 

The world has lost a remarkable, wonderful, dynamic woman.  Heaven has gained her.  God bless you, Jan.  Look down on me from where you are and nudge me when I need it.  And don't worry, we're all going to make sure that the flowers in the Grotto are weeded.

*For more Quick Takes from many wonderful bloggers, run over to Conversion Diaries!