Arizona

In early May my dad, and step mom Michelle moved to Arizona, but my baby sis Cassidy (she's 16) stayed in CA to finish the school year.

My brother Tim and I just got back on the 16th from taking her out to AZ. It was a fun trip!! I've really missed my dad, and even though we didn't see each other every day it's hard knowing I can't just go see him anytime.

It was hard being away from Paul for that long, but he was away at a conference on Church history that week. That's why I planned the trip when I did.

There aren't many pics from the trip and what I did take was on my phone so the quality may not be so great.  :/

There's also a short video of a lightning storm!

The view on the drive up. We're almost there!!

Cassidy on our first day exploring.

Dad & Tim on our first day fishing.

Cassidy & her new friend!  :)

Our dinner that night...the BIG one was mine! ;)

My dinner!!

Tim & Cookie on the back porch. 

Pretty rainbow (view from backyard)!

Same rainbow.

Michelle, Cookie, Tink (chihuahua), and Bella (Mastiff) relaxing!

Tim at the top the mountain at the ski resort. We rode up, but hiked down. Tim, Cassidy, and I didn't stay on the trail, we went into the trees where we knew there were bears and things because we saw a bear cub cross the trail on the way up.  It was fun!!

Another view.

Cookie chillin' on the back porch...I think she misses it! :(

This storm went on all day, the day before we left. I'm just glad it was clear the next morning.

Memorial Day Weekend

Getting back into blogging....

I know, I know, I've said that before, but I really mean it this time.

Today caught up on housework, but I still have a lot to do tomorrow...ugh!!

This weekend was great. Saturday we went to a party with all of the people who were on the Holy Land trip with us, and we had a great time. Sunday, after Mass we went to my moms and hung out with her and my brother who had his two dogs with him (Zion & Kia), and since we had Cookie with us it made for an interesting visit. It was still fun though! On  Monday once Paul got home from golfing we went for a walk by a lake near our library with Cookie (pics below), got lunch, then napped, watched Bridge on the River Kwai, had dinner and went to bed.  I'm sure people assume that since it's just the two of us, we spend time like that all the time, but we really don't, so yesterday was a much needed relax with your sweetie kinda day!!

Holy Week - CONFESSION TIMES!!!

We received this Holy Week Schedule (pic below) in the mail yesterday, and I couldn't help but smile after reading it. 

Notice the list of CONFESSION times!!!

This schedule is from San Secondo d'Asti Catholic Church.  It is the Church where we were married, and attended frequently until the TLM was available close by (it's a 45 min drive for us), but I wish we were able to get there more often.

The Church itself is 150 years old and it has the ambiance you would expect from a Church that old. But that is not the main reason we wanted to be married there...

The Pastor, Fr. Marx (yes that's his last name, people actually call him by his last name), Is very Traditional in his teaching and administering the Sacraments (as you can tell). Now I'm sure some would think "if he's that traditional he must be rather stern", or something along those lines, but that's so far from the truth, Fr. Marx is the kindest, most soft-hearted man I know, during his sermons he refers to the congregation as "my dear ones". 

When I see something like this schedule for Confessions I know he "gets it", he gets what's really important. I know that because this schedule is not unexpected. His Parish offers Confession every day of the week, and before every Sunday Mass.

This post is not meant to say no other Priest takes the Sacraments seriously, especially one as important as Confession is, but this morning I went online to the websites of our near by parishes and most have already had their Penance services and will not have any other scheduled Confessions before Easter.

I hope you will join me in praying that in years to come (sooner would be great!!) we see more Holy Week schedules like the one from San Secondo d'Asti...

The perfect end to a great lunch...

Afternoon Walk

It rained really hard all day yesterday, but today it was beautiful, so this afternoon Cookie and I went for a walk. I took some pictures along the way, and some back at the house.

Love the colors of this tree. We walked by a few of them.

Blue skies!

Somebody needed to stop & rest a bit.

Roses in the front yard. I would show the whole plant, but it's still new so there's not much to it yet. But these sure are pretty.

Our whole front yard is lined with Geraniums.

We planted Snap Dragons all along the back wall & they're lookin' good.

Fresh flowers for Our Blessed Mother!!

Fried Ice Cream

I like to take pictures of food. In fact, I am one of those people that posts food pictures all the time on facebook, but since I gave up facebook for Lent, you get to see it. :)

This is from Saturday night at a Mexican restaurant we went to.

Paul ordered one for each of us since we didn't know how big the scoop of ice cream would be. I was amazed when they came, they were HUGE!! I only ate 1/4 of mine, but Paul ate the rest of it & all of his. He has the same metabolism he had at 18, it's amazing!

I just realized something while writing this. If I posted this picture on fb, all the post would be is the picture, with a caption like "yummmm", or "mmmmmm...good!".

LOL!

This way I could write a whole story about my Fried Ice Cream.

Nazareth & Cana

The day we arrived in Israel we went straight from the airport to the Mount of Beatitudes Hospice (Tiberias) which is where we were staying, so there were no real pictures from that day. Just a couple scenic photos. I posted two of them to give you an idea of how green it was. When we arrived to the hospice it was dark, and we were tired, so we ate dinner then headed to bed.

The next day we went to Nazareth to see Mary's Well, the Church of St. Joseph which is built over the Nazareth home of the Holy Family, and the Basilica of the Annunciation where we heard Mass.

Sadly I had trouble with one of my memory cards and LOST pretty much all pictures of the Basilica and the Church of Saint Joseph. I will find some pics online and post them on a later date, so you know what we saw, but I do wish I had my own photos, I know I had some great shots I really wanted to share with you. But luckily I had another card on me, otherwise I would have lost all pics of Cana too.

View from the bus driving to Tiberias

View from the bus driving to Tiberias

Nazareth

Nazareth

You can see the top of the Basilica of the Annunciation in the middle of the photo.

Mary's Well

This is called Mary's Well, but it's actually just an extension. The actual Well is inside St. Gabriel's Church.

Amer (our tour guide) explaining all of this to us.

He was born and raised in Nazareth, and still lives there today.

He was awesome!!

Paul at "Mary's Well".

St. Gabriel's Church

Actual site of the Well, just up the hill a bit.

Inside St. Gabriel's Church

Actually Mary's Well

Water spout

Inside St. Gabriel's Church

Basilica of the Annunciation

This is the only picture I have. The inside was beautiful, and Mass was said just outside Grotto of the Annunciation in the lower Church.

There are two levels.

Down the street and around the corner. If I remember correctly the sign was put there during the Pope's visit (I think John Paul II), so that he would see it as he drove by. It was never removed because that piece of land is Muslim property.

Can you find the misspelling?

Cana Wedding Church

Inside the Wedding Church

Where we (and all couples in our group) renewed our wedding vows!!

Painting behind the Altar

Me & Paul

Cana Wedding Church

Main Church

Blog Layout

For the last 2 or so weeks I have been playing with the layout of my blog. I wanted to keep it simple, but I wasn't liking how it was turning out.

As I was looking through the Holy Land pictures (more to come...lol) I knew I had to use the above picture on my header. Personally I think it turned out great! The picture was taken of the Sea of Galilee while standing in Capernaum.

Anyhow, I think I'm done making major changes to the blog for a while. I'm really happy with how it's turned out.

What do you think?

First Stop, London!

We started our trip off in London, but we were only there for one day so we did not see a whole lot. In fact we had so many delays that day most of what we saw was as we drove by it. We did get a glimpse of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben (can you really miss it?!), and St. Paul's Cathedral, but the main event of the day was the inside of St. Thomas More's CELL!! I believe we were supposed to see more of the Tower of London, but like I said we were really delayed...

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

St. Paul's Cathedral

My Sweet Husband!!

Inside the Tower grounds

Inside the Tower grounds...

Inside the Tower grounds...

St. Thomas More's CELL

St. Thomas More's CELL...

St. Thomas More's CELL...the famous window

St. Thomas More's CELL...the famous window...

St. Thomas More's CELL...the famous window

(that was a great moment for him)

St. Thomas More's CELL...

St. Thomas More's burial site

Inside St. Thomas More's burial site

Memorial where Anne Boleyn was beheaded

Cute Picture!!

part of the Tower of London

Tower where St. Thomas More was kept (see the window), and in the sme tower right above him was St. John Fisher

View from the outside...

Statue of Our Lady

Church of the English Martyr's

(where Mass was said that day)

More to come from the Holy Land...