As the world turns..

The past week has been blur. Filled with craziness. I have had indescribable emotions.
I worked last weekend (so I started the week tired) due to a schedule change I had 2 days off IN A ROW in the middle of the week. This NEVER happens. I decided to go see my grandsons. Oh, have they grown in the 4 weeks since I saw them last.


But before I left my husband and I started to talk about church, the diaconate and the need for us to come to terms with some things that are going on. With as crazy as the last year has been for us -this next year is looking to be as busy. So Todd will be looking to take a sabbatical from his church duties until things at work and home calm down. I really thought as our kids moved on after high school and college things would free us up to have more time for extra things rather then less time.
DH has always put God first, me second, the kids 3rd, his job 4th and the Diaconate last. There have been times (with need) this order has been out of step for a while but over the years he has managed to keep things in check. My job at the church? I have none. Of choice my role at church has been to support my husband. I was not ordained and I did not need to search for my role, many deacons wives search for their place in their husbands Deacon ministry. I have never needed to. I firmly see my role as one of love and support. This has always felt right for me. But it is hard to pull back. The only other time he has had to do this was the year our oldest son was dealing with cancer treatment.
So I went to our daughter's to see the grandbabies with my thoughts on many things. The drive allowed me to find a peace with the decision we have wrestled with - prayer and music helped!
And time with babies is always life nurturing and filled with blessing.
Arriving home I was met with some not totally unexpected news but news that reassured me that the past 2 days had been well worth my time for prayer, and that our plan is a good one. Now we need prayers that the Diocesan offices will see our need and grant the sabbatical.
I called in sick the day after I got home. My ears have been so plugged with occasional pain over the past 2 months and has gotten to the point that I went to the doctor. He does not think I have an ear infection but the amount of fluid behind my eardrum needs to be taken care of. So prednisone to help decrease the fluid and if this doesn't work I will likely need tubes to help equalize the pressure. The prednisone after 2 days seems to be helpng very little but I have 4 days left of the medicine... I really don't want tubes.

However I ended the week on a good note.
We celebrated my dad's 86th birthday on Friday evening.
My mom is recovering very well from her double knee surgery/
Saturday I was up early to go to the cities to meet with my brothers family to do the Cystic Fibrosis Climb for a Cure -IDS center 1028 steps, 50 stories. The team raised over 6000 dollars for CF. I have a niece and a nephew with CF -my niece has spent a lot of time in the hospital this past year and my nephew is hospitalized now and could not be at the climb. There is not much we can do for them but pray and support. And it felt good to be there to climb. I did not raise money this year other then what we donated ourselves. And my brother gave me the additional amount I needed to get a t-shirt. Funny guy ...I had donated on his goal and he handed off half of that for a t shirt. Next time I will do better. And I made it the entire way!!


I ended my week going to mass with my sister and her husband and then meeting up with another brother and sister-in-law for supper and then 7 out of nine of my sibs (and spouses) went to Church Basement Ladies A 2nd helping. It was a good time -we laughed we cried!! My sister Brenda laughed so hard we thought she laid an egg!!

Empty Nesters

The son that still lives in our basement is gone to Guard drill this weekend. So this is our first weekend as empty nesters. It is quiet. We had breakfast of eggs and pancakes made by my darlin. I finished a letter to our son the recruit and then we went to the hospital to see my Mom, who had a bilateral knee replacement surgery yesterday. We did a little shopping, a little hand holding, a little cleaning, a little baking and had a nice supper. We did the dishes and now it is time for a movie, a glass of wine and snuggling. All in all a very nice day.

Gilligans Island theme (Marine Recruit stye)

This was the first page of our latest letter from Chris

Jan 10, 2011
Dear Mom and Dad,
Listen to the Gilligan’s Island Theme then Read this. I take a lot of pride in my latest work so don’t hesitate to share it!


I _____come from a town in Minnesota
Where the folks are pretty chill
But here at MC___RD all we scream is kill, kill, kill
Kill in the morning and kill at noon and kill in the night as well

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it
But this place might be hell

“come here right now
Be there by then
You do what I tell you____”

This recruit can’t wait for Pendleton and starting up phase two __!
We’ll go on humps and sleep outside
We’ll rough it like it’s cool
But that’s all right cause that’s what
This recruit came here to do !

R & R

This is the first day I have had in months that did not have a schedule.

I put a bunch of Christmas cards in the mail this morning. I had about 3/4 of my letters done before my life went out of control but today I finished the majority of them. I have Christmas presents for co-workers that are still sitting in my closet waiting to be wrapped. I am so far behind with those!!

I am supposed to be working on weight loss I made it to the club twice since January 1st. I figure the way things have been going twice is doing good.

We received our 5th and 6th letters from our recruit this week. It is so good to hear from him. He sounds so up beat in his letters. And he is trying hard to keep us informed as much as he can. In one of his first letters he talked about applying and being accepted to being a Catholic Prayer Leader. He goes to classes weekly with a Chaplain and has been learning how to lead prayer for the Catholics in his platoon.

Then in one of his last letters he shared about a gift passed on to him from a recruit in another company that was in the 3rd phase of Boot Camp.
He wrote "Last Tuesday a ___ Co. recruit passed onto me something a 3rd phase recruit had given him before him...... and so on and so forth. It is a crucifix, a St. Christopher medal, 2 shields of strength with Romans 8:37 and 8:38 on them and a dog tag with Joshua 1:9 on it. It was pretty cool. On marine week I will pass it to a phase 1 recruit."

I find it amazing how his faith walk is being strengthened in this time. His love of Mass and Eucharist has always been strong. But I find at a time that things could be more difficult God is working to keep his faith alive and strong for himself and for others. God is so awesome. God is so Good.

We laugh as we read his letters lately food seems to occupy a lot of his time. In this same letter he wrote I still haven't gotten dessert but I've been tempted. Thus, I decree! Mother when you come hither to San Diego I beseech thee to make any and all bars you will bring (especially chocolate chip cookie bars) I can't wait for the sweets.

I had to read it twice to see if he had somehow been zapped to a different era. Who uses words like decree, beseech and hither today? My son in Boot Camp

He makes us laugh even as we miss him <3

We Got Mail !!!

Chris has been at MCRD in San Diego since 12/13
He left on the 12th so it has been 18 days.
We received a Form letter with his address on Monday. We had 6 letters in the mail to him by Tuesday morning. And there have been 3 more since.
Today we received our first REAL mail from him. 2 letters.
They were everything we hoped for - long letters that told us things were going well.
They made us laugh out loud.

Oh how I LOVE my son!!

He even wrote us a poem


Hello mudda, Hello fadda
Here I am in
San Diego
It ain't nice though
It's pretty rainy
Sometimes all this training
gets a little draining

His sense of humor shines through.
Oh do I MISS my son!!
But I believe he is right where God wants him right now.



Oh how PROUD I am of my son!!

Mail days are HAPPY DAYS - here's to many more Happy Days!!

Goodbye and Hello

Chris and Dad



Chris and His godparents


With Grandpa and Grandma


Chris and Megan



with Nick and Jackie


with C & D


A new Grampa and Gramma were also born!!



Our first grandsons










The family


How can we end up with this many unmatched socks in just 4 days?

Rollercoaster ride

The past few days have had it's ups and down. Saturday we were in a snowstorm. We had 17 people at our house for a soup supper to wish Chris goodbye. He asked his grandparents, his godparents, C and D a couple from church -(if you have read here before they are Sr. Mary's parent's), his girlfriend and a cousin and his family including their 4 kids. It was a nice send off.

On Sunday we went to our usual 10:30 mass and sat in our usual pew in the front. Poor Father Matthew we had asked him to meet with us after church to bless Chris. So he knew when he looked at us why there were tears in our eyes. Father could not look at us for most of mass. DH and I cried for most of mass each time we heard Chris sing, we love to hear Chris sing at mass. We along with our friends C and D cried during the communion hymn which I think was the same one used the last weekend Sr. Mary left. We had planned to go for breakfast but instead realized time was short with the roads so bad so we headed to Caribou for our usual after mass coffee time. Too soon it was time to go to his girlfriends house to pick her up. Then off to the recruiting office. A few quick hugs and it was time to say good bye.

I have not seen my husband cry like that for a long time.

Monday morning Chris called us from Mpls and in the evening from Dallas letting us know where he was and checking for updates on his nephews.

We left for Wisconsin at 7:30 Monday morning a trip that normally takes 4 hours took 7 1/2 after the weekend snowstorm. We spent a little time with Brittany and Ken and then headed to the hotel to wait for their phone call. The call came at 12:30 in the morning waking us up with the news that our grandsons had arrived safely at 11:30 and 11:53 on 12/13/10. They are named Elijah Peter and Michael Todd. They are both little peanuts and named after the grandpas. Peter is Ken's dad and Todd is Brittany's dad.

As far as we can tell Christopher would have been getting off the bus in MCRD at about the time Elijah and Michael were entering the world.

Tuesday morning we met our grandsons at 8:30 AM - the trip home was thankfully uneventful.
Our emotions from Saturday through Tuesday reached highs and lows - we are exhausted.

Last night we missed the call Chris is allowed to make home to let us know he was there. He left us a message on answering machine at home.

As I write this I am sitting in Brittany and Ken's living room watching them care for their babies.
Hopefully this roller coaster ride will end soon and I will be able to get some sleep.

Dear Lord we thank you for the blessing of these 2 little boys and we ask you keep Chris safe and healthy.