October

89. Cheers to My Friend's Dad. For His birthday, we purposefully posed this way.

Tako

Celebrating DZ's bday

St. Paddy's Day.

Last night's MB'day Crawl (photo cred: JB)

Labor Day Marks the end of summer. (But not meteorologically according to the In-house weatherman)

Beni Zentarsky and Pax

Pax and Chloe Ashman

LEDP Reunion. 

Pontooning On The River With Some Lovely People

Friends From My Freshman Year In College Visit (plus kids)

Memorable Weekend

The Weekend in Pictures.

Not pictured: The steak, baked potato, corn, watermelon, pineapple, mushrooms, spicy green peppers meal I made last night for 14 people.

Life Goes On....

We will not get parents-of-the-year award since we opted to see John Mellencamp, (thanks to Simon and Denise) instead of watching G's band concert this evening.  We sent K to watch her for us, which she did begrudgingly

I noticed that although the concert crowd was lively, upbeat and about 10 years younger than the Neil Diamond crowd, I still felt confident that I could out-sprint most of them in the event of a bear attack.

Last week we were also unable to attend G's sports banquet due to life-

I asked G if people were beginning to ask if she was an orphan.

In my defense--she may be better of raised by a pack of wolves. 

In Honor Of My Dad's Birthday Today AND Mother's Day

Phil 4:13 (May The Fourth Be With You)

Mile 13 Photo credit: Steve


The Weekend In Pictures.

Busy Weekend.

Updated 5/5/2015:
My friend from college, Tina Padua-Aquino had this to say about the fight:

"The commentators at ESPN described Manny's demeanor at the post fight conference as "satisfied" and they were boggled by it.
That my friends is called "PEACE" that surpasses all understanding.
So was God glorified? Yes!!
God bless you Manny! And I pray blessings upon Mayweather too.
I think some of Manny's gentle demeanor rubbed off on Mayweather at the post fight."

All is well.

HBD To A

Spent the day with my brother, A--to celebrate his birthday.

Pics here: 

10 Lessons Learned From Steve's 50th:

“Be careful not to let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you."
~Luke 21:34

1."Drop off Catering" means to order food from a catering service, where they deliver it but don't serve it.  Say this at the very beginning of your inquiry so that the catering people don't make pushy appointments to do a home inspection. (True story: I had to cancel a company because they wanted to do a site evaluation of my house. drop off catering, drop off catering...remember that term.)
The caterer that didn't need to give my home a rectal, got the job and they were excellent. (thanks ck)

2. 10 cases of beer, 4 cases of wine and 10-12 bottles of various liquor is sufficient for 80 people.

3. For a special event like a 50th b-day, splurging on a bartender and two servers is worth it.

4. Throwing a party is a very good motivator to clear the house of clutter.

5. Prepping the house for the party, has saved the rabbit's life.  The rabbit's relocation from our dining room to our second floor turned out to be a good move.  Now that G has to navigate around his large enclosure to get to her bedroom or bathroom, she remembers to feed and water him.

6. Knowing that you will host a dozen people to stay over after the party, forces you to really clean well, or get creative in disguising your mess.

7. Speaking of creative and unusual, setting up food in an unlikely place (our basement ping-pong room) prevented a bottle-neck sich.  In the unlikely event of another party this large,  it is good to remember to think outside the box.

8. It is good to stay sober if you are hosting a large party, so that if your teenager defies you in the middle of her dad's 50th bday celebration, i.e. does not come home at the assigned time, don't freak out. Just jump in the car and get her. (#sogladIwassober)

9. Do set aside the desire to wring the daughter's neck until after the last guests departure the next afternoon, because you must:

10. Be ready to sing karaoke or play ping pong after the party until 4 am.


Glad you had a Happy Birthday, Steve.

More Pics From Saturday.

Unplanned

(What SL thinks we should do to Steve's deer head. She is funny.)

For The Record,

After the family reunion at the property for 50+ people,

I still made it to the 9 pm mass at the Oratory last night.

I was most grateful for:

-1 very successful and fun-filled weekend.
-all the hard work the men put in that made the place more fun.
-1 house that slept 22 out of the 50  people.
- 5 tents that kept 13 people out of the few hours of rain.
(including me! I conquered camping in the rain!)
-The wilderness environment (bear sounds) that woke 1 person up.
-Everyone's safety.
-The ability to be patient and as neutral as possible despite a couple of challenging personalities.
Truly only a couple. Out of 50, that is not bad. But human nature makes us linger on the few smudges even if most people were very pleasant and enjoyable.

Once we got home, I invited my family to come with me to church but I had no takers.
Before I left, I told Steve that I wanted to attend mass to give me insight on how to deal with human porcupines.
The homily was tailor made for what I was needing.
It didn't even seem related as the Gospel reading was about the Canaanite woman who asked Jesus to heal her sick daughter and then Jesus replied something like... how it is not right to give the children's food to the dogs and the woman replies, yes but even the dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall from the table...
The priest explained the history and the standing of the Canaanites, etc. But I was so surprised to hear that his bottom line was:
we are called "to be a witness" and to be loving towards everyone. 
He said this is hard to do around difficult people--especially when at times the annoying personalities are people we are related to!
(!!!!!! was he reading my mind??!)
What are the odds that he was somehow able to link that story to what I needed?
(yes, I know, Steve would say: 1 in 3)
He said although it is challenging, the Holy Spirit can and will help us.
We will be given the grace to answer God's call to be saints. Saints??!!
I will be the first one to say, no way.
But I can surely try my best.
Luckily I am not around difficult people very often.
And that is something I am thankful for.

My Family On The Live Broadcast Of The Baseball Game

I read today that with practice, we can use tasks that we normally dread, as an opportunity to enjoy closeness with God.

When I unexpectedly got a call from K asking me if I would not mind picking her up from a track meet, 55 miles round trip--just so she would not have to wait until the rest of her team mates were done with their events--I decided to go for it--and get "some closeness."

Don't dread, don't dwell.

An hour and a half drive later, I realized that my act of love ended up free-ing up my evening.
I was scheduled to watch a baseball game with the rest of my family.
I got K home in time for it, when we thought she was not going to be able to make it.
We had already invited one of G's friends to go in her place.
So that is how I ended up not going.
Which I was not unhappy about, since I am not really much of a sports fan.

While they were gone, I used the evening to go with my friend DZ to pick up a
HALF-MARATHON number, chip and shirt.

I did not register for this because I had no intention of  running a half marathon again.
--It was K who was planning to run it this year.

But her not yet fully healed stress fracture on her shin got in the way of her training for this and so this is how I got left holding the Half-Marathon Bag.

To run or not to run 13.1 miles completely unprepared  (mentally and physically) that is the question.
13.1 miles would be a task that I would normally dread.
But an opportunity to enjoy closeness with God?
I would very much like to dwell on that.