Follow us in 2012...Instagram!

So, this year has been off to a racing start.
I am trying to finish up grad school and still teaching. Between 9 credit hours and teaching every Monday & Thursday my weeks are very full. It's manageable and I'm not totally crazy yet with projects but those days will come.
Meg is doing well, at 5 months pregnant now she is feeling great and taking care of us. Today, on my 28th birthday she baked up some of my favorites; Banana-Blueberry cake with a cream cheese frosting, a breakfast bread that my momma would make on Christmas day and we had mimosa's to top it off. I enjoyed having friends over and celebrating my birthday in our home.
It has been a wonderful birthday weekend between West Side Story at the Fox Theater, Mardi Gras Parade down in Soulard and then brunch with friends today. 28 is looking to be a blessed year.

I've started a project inspired by my sisters and their Creative Memories albums. I am doing a photo a day in 2012. You can follow us at http://followgram.me/ajp219.

I apologize that I haven't gotten on the blog quite as much this year, but that's to be expected between finishing up my program and work.

Perhaps Meg will get on here to share some thoughts with us...

New Year

Happy new year! Here are a few exciting photos from our north west trip. A great wedding in Portland, making posole with my sister, beach time and hanging with cousins.

Thoughts from England

            I returned Monday night from a week in England as part of a team of women who led a Women’s ACTS retreat.  The retreat was held at a pilgrimage site founded 950 years ago after a woman was asked by Mary in a dream to build the place where she received the Annunciation to bear Christ (Luke 1:26-38).   This revelation of Mary is known as Our Lady of Walsingham. 

            I have returned from this retreat renewed in my own faith.  During the retreat I gave a talk about my own faith journey and my path that wavers between focusing on my own efforts to fulfill my own sense of worthiness to accepting who I am and what I have been given as pure grace and gift.  As a shared my story, it was accompanied by many tears, which I was not expecting nor completely understood.   After sitting with the experience, perhaps my tears where recognizing I am as much in this pattern of wavering between having to prove myself and accepting grace as before, particularly as I approach graduation and feelings of needing to prove my worthiness is work swell up.

            This morning I woke up early to read, pray and soak in some silence.  I can across this reflection and smiled:

                        You would think everyone would want God, but a common response is “Lord, I am not worthy.  I would rather have my own religion and morality, which gives me the impression that I can win a cosmic contest by my own efforts.”

                        In contrast, the Annunciation story is the crescendo point of the theme of total grace and gift.  Mary does not say she is not worthy.  She just asks for clarification.

                                                       - Richard Rohr, Hidden Things

I smile because our retreat was at a place soaked in the revelation of the Annunciation and what this signifies reflects the movement that occurred within me- from winning God by my own efforts to accepting grace and gift.  Worthiness was never the question.

This experienced encompassed much more than my personal revelation, but at I sat this morning, this is the reflection that came to me.

Learning

Lately I've had this thought while watching my two year old repeat ABC's, songs, or retell stories that he's heard dozens of times; he's doing what we all do when we learn something new.
As Meg or I will read him his favorite books or even books that we've just picked up from the library, after a few times, he will start telling the story to us. He's memorized it. I find this really incredible to watch, basically he is showing us how he's learned these words and using them in the context in which he's learned them. It's a pretty basic learning style. We all learn math the same way, first we get a formula and then we practice using that formula in some context either word problems or basic number problems. But it's all the same pattern, we use it in the same context.

What is really awesome to see is when he uses the words he knows in another context other than the books we read. This is the next level of learning. One example of this is with Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree," this is one of my all-time favorite books as it is many other people's. We were on a hike one day and Carlos saw a stump (this happens at the end of the book, where the old man returns to the tree and all that is left to give is a place to sit). Carlos upon seeing the stump called it a "giving tree!" and promptly went over to sit on it. It was not just an old tree, or a decaying log, it was the stump from the book.

These moments happen to us constantly, we are constantly taking in what we read about, or see on tv and applying the language we hear to make sense of the world around us. For me, to see it happen in such pure form, makes me appreciate how awesome our minds are even as two year olds.

August/Whidbey Island

Again, in my attempt to catch up on capturing these photos and some of the unique moments of this past summer I am writing about a month behind.
We were fortunate enough to spend a couple of weeks out at Whidbey Island this August. We spent the entire time down on the cabin affectionately called "the peanut."
For me it has been one of my favorite vacations of all time. Our days consisted of waking up and wondering what we would do for the day, the choices between beach walks, volleyball, crabbing, and campfires. We occasionally visited the other part of the island but seemed pretty content to stay near the water.

There are so many wonderful parts about staying at the cabins. We are away from traffic so kids (and dogs) roam freely without fear of cars, only the occasionally golf cart. The drift wood makes excellent forts! Meg grew up going to Whidbey Island as a child and it was neat for her to bring her own baby boy to live  on the island for a summer. 

We were lucky to have so much family come and visit us while we were there, each weekend would host slew of cousins and aunts and uncles.

Throughout the weeks Carlos did have a playmate in his cousin Matthew as they explored the beach and played on the trampoline.

Seen here, they are about to go out on our first crabbing adventure. 

Driftwood Forts!!--->

On the 6th of August, Carlos turned two years old. We celebrated with family and cupcakes. I'm not sure he understood the event of having a birthday, but he did not complain about the treats.

Early in the trip Meg and I were able to sneak away (without Carlitos) to SnowWater, a time-share that her Grandma owns.

A few months ago, Meg's Grandfather passed away here at Snowwater, and we were the first visitors from the family to go there since he had passed.

In a certain way the trip was difficult for Meg, it brought back many tears of her grandfather's passing. At the same time this was a place that held many special memories for her grandparents. It was their get-away in the mountains, near Glacier WA.  We spent time without cell phones, without connectivity, playing cards and drinking wine, things we think they would have done out there.

Meg and I enjoyed a wonderful hike up Church Mtn, we got as far as the snow covered tops would let us. We walked the pathways around the condo and walked near the river.  We ate at a great little ski bar and grill, played ping pong (Meg beat me every time),  and shuffle board.

We returned to spend a weekend with my sister Lora and her family, visiting from Portland. I was so excited to show her my new found skill of crabbing. I had gotten pinched badly the day before but was determined to go out again.

This trip was a true vacation,  we left wondering if we could live there spending our days fixing up the cabin and hunting for our foods, shopping at the local farmers markets.

No plans to move yet, but I'm sure we'll return for a vacation soon. 

Balloon Glow in Forest Park

 Per a request from my Grandfather, I made sure to get these photos up as soon as possible.
On Friday night, we took a long walk through Forest Park to be a part of one of the coolest events that the city has to offer. The balloon glow is the opening night to the annual Hot Air Balloon races in St Louis. The evening before the race, all the balloons are on display and people are able to see them up close and be a part of the festivities.


 As we approached the  balloons, it seemed surreal to have these enormous structures up close. I had never been near one, and as they glowed it really did seem magical how it all worked.
Often each balloon would have 4 to 5 people holding down the basket or tether to keep them grounded. There were bag-pippers playing and the typical fairground foods, turkey legs and funnel cakes. As we walked up I smiled to hear "99 Red Balloons" over the radio there.

The excitement would build as one team of ballooners would blow their air horn to signal to light the flames. Then all of them would fire up their tanks and you would have this awesome glow throughout the park.

I couldn't help but be as excited as Carlos was, he literally giggled and squealed in his chair every time he saw the flames bellow out.

 The evening ended when all the balloons came down and the crowds stayed to watch a fireworks display up close. By far this was one of my favorite evenings here in St Louis.
For one reason or another since we've been in the area, we have missed this event each year. I've always heard how cool it was and how beautiful the balloons were at night, but this was a great chance to experience them ourselves. It was even better to see it from the eyes of a two year old with all the awe and wonder he felt. "Hot Balloons" as he calls them hold a special place for both of us now.

July (My attempt to catch up on blogging)

This summer flew by in an incredible whirlwind of trips to the airport during July. Several times this summer Meghan and I made the 25 minutes drive to Lambert airport at 4am. We were often awakened in a delerious rush that came with the realization that we might miss our flight.
Carlos, completely oblivious to his parents careless planning, always woke up with immmediate energy (yes at 4am) and an uneneding declaration of "AIRPLANE!" He couldn't contain himself, he was so excited.

Usually we would make it to the airport only an hour before our flight. We'd made it barely in time to ensure our luggage was on the plane and then pleeded with the airport gods that the gate wouldn't close after we walked through security. In our race to the airport inevitably, we would forget a few essential items; child's birth certificate, car seat, and worst of all "woof woof" (Carlos's beloved).

We learned some valuable lessons about getting to the airport sooner and putting the birth certificate on the iphone so we didn't lose it. My sister once forgot her daughter's birth certificate at the aiport and she was forced to pay for a ticket because she could not prove her daughter was less than two years old. Somebody said it was like a Bobby Knight incident. We don't talk about that story much anymore.

We got down to San Antonio to visit my parents, and two of my sisters were there with their kiddos (15 of us in all). The child to adult ratio was 3:2, most under 10 years old.
It got a little crazy sometimes, but we survived.
We went down to the coast to spend some time on the beach with everybody, I attempted to skim board, Meghan got sunburned and Carlos enjoyed chasing around his cousins.

Some trip high-lites; every morning my Dad would take a few people out fishing, it was nice because it was quiet and you had an excuse to have a beer at like 9am. In the evenings, we'd play dominoes and laugh, and talk.

One of the days out at the coast, while it was too hot to be out on the water, Meg and I hosted a dance party for all the nieces and nephews, complete with instructions to the Cupid Shuffle.

On the days we would travel, it was an all day event to get everybody in the 3 car caravan, the houses cleaned up and all the bags packed. With all the logistics and the rush to get out the door, somebody wouldn't be happy, somebody would be hungry and I recognized more and more how much like my Dad I am becoming.
We traveled to Tu y Yo, my grandfather's ranch. He purchased this with his dad in 1975, 144 acres of mesquite trees, hay fields. I grew up hunting, fishing, riding horses and generally romping around here during the summer months.  It was cool to see Carlos do some exploring of his own. A few times he'd go missing, but you could count on he was usually checking out the tractors or the riding lawn mowers.
More family gathered with us there to enjoy a cajun boil, a few water gun fights and more oppurtunities to catch up. Unfortunately, I got sick off the cajun boil and spent the next few days going from the toilet back to the couch. Sorry Meg.

We returned from Texas more exhausted than when we left but thankful we were able to see so much family. Our next trip a week later was a long weekend in Colorado Springs. One of our groomsmen from our wedding, Brandon was getting married at the end of July there in C. Springs. We stayed with my sister, Gina who we just saw a few weeks before in Texas. It also was a first time since graduation to revisit the Air Force Academy for me.

The wedding was a ton of fun and my sister graciously took care of Carlos while we enjoyed a little date night. It was a great chance to see some guys who I went to high school with. We enjoyed the night out and danced like fools (no surprise).

The Central Catholic contingent



July was a busy month, we'd barely been in St Louis it seemed like, but I think the opportunity to see friends and family outweighed the flashes of chaos that our traveling occasionally showed.