Serendipity: the Art of Happy Accidents

My husband and I spent the last six days with our youngest and her family celebrating our dual anniversaries. Larry and I chatted for the past few months about whether to do something special for our 55th. Trips have become a rare adventure for us. Driving long distances seems like too much trouble and neither of us wants to fly any more. Between the sardine can experience on the plane and the rude and crude treatment by the TSA, we'd rather go to the dentist. Our last significant trips were one for our 50th anniversary when we drove to the Great Smoky Mountains with another daughter and her husband and a trip to Sandbridge in 2021 for a beach week. In the Smokies we stayed in a charming air B and B with a Lord of the Rings theme complete with a cardboard Gandalf. Both of those trips were family events which always doubles the fun.

Commercial Break: Grandparents Rule (Book)

We've been posting a lot of serious things lately and truly IT CAN BE DEPRESSING! So I thought a break from the bad things going on in the family of the Church and a look at grandparenting 101 was in order. I love the grandma in the video below: a cookie-baking, grandchild-entertaining grandma.

At my house, grandma bakes, does crafts, plays Kings in the Corners and Go Fish, works puzzles, gives cooking lessons, stops for a visit at Church to light a candle on the way to the ice cream shop etc. Grandpa (named Paka by our oldest grandchild) gives tractor rides and bike riding lessons, pushes swings, tutors math, etc..

And Here's What We're Doing on the Second Day of Christmas

Snowed in with kids and grandkids. 

Meditation for Sunday: The Importance of a Father!

We live in a culture where fatherlessness is devastating many families. Kids who grow up without dads are more likely to commit crimes, join gangs, drop out of school, abuse drugs, live in poverty, have mental and physical problems, and engage in premarital sex. (See here.) Championship fathers love, coach, and model for their children. And one of the most important thing about dads? Children are more likely to practice their faith as adults if Dad did. Pray and thank God today for fathers who rear their children in love and faithfulness.

Real life - it's about family!

Larry and I took off for a short camping trip about an hour north of home. Seems these days we're lucky to get two days in a row to do something besides defend the faith and keep ahead of the grass and garden. But I really do have a life away from the computer and it focuses on family. In fact, it's our family that makes us fight for the culture because, with nineteen grandchildren, Larry and I have a big stake in the future. We don't want our children to suffer like the children of Israel. And so I keep another blog about family and vacations and the ordinary times of babysitting and baking, reading children's stories, taking walks and teaching the little ones about how faith is the center of our lives.

And every now and then, Larry and I take off on our own. But even on vacation we can't get away from the mess we're in. There are just too many reminders. While we were in Martinsburg, WV we stopped in at St. Joseph's Catholic Church to make a visit. Ai yi yi! talk about a trip back to the 70s and 80s and a church that's as ugly as sin.  But the worst part was the way poor Jesus is being treated. Forgive us, Lord. Check it out for yourself.