Weekend Visit with Joshua

Our annual weekend visit with Josh at the Seminary. A weekend of love, faith, family, laughs, tears, coffee, traffic jams, friends, food, fast driving and screaming toddlers

Happy Birthday Josh

More important than Tax Day is that it's my 2nd child, oldest son, 18th birthday.

Happy birthday Josh. You are now old enough to: vote, join the army, smoke, get a tattoo, get your body pierced and date (family rule). Of course being in the seminary might make a few of these hard to do.

We love son!!!

Only 8 More After This One

# 3 child (Caleb) turned 15 and 9 months recently - the age that the People's Republic of Maryland has decided to 'allow' us parents to teach Our children to drive. He actually can't get his license for another 6 months. And in that time he has to log 60 driving a parent.

So now I get to teach Caleb how to drive. Sam will help with it also but for some reason I seem to do better at this than she does. Which is kinda weird cause she has a whole lot more patience than I do. She has the patience of Job and I have the patience of Hannibal Lector at a morgue. Go figure.

Teaching a teen to drive in this traffic-packed crazed-driver area, also known as the DC suburbs is like teaching someone how to be a knife thrower and you are the target. Maybe it's that way in all areas of the country. But it sure seems particularly bad to me around here. On top of the sheer volume of traffic we have here. We also have; all the speed-crazed commuters rushing to work while texting or talking on their phones, soccer moms in their SUV's, immigrants who are in cars for the first time in their adult lives and lots of geezers who for some reason haven't moved down to Florida yet.

So far he's doing better than Alexandria or Josh did at this point. Alex if you are reading this - sorry but it's true. It's that whole hand-eye coordination thing.


Maybe I should get a sticker like this one put on the cars. The only problem with this sticker is that people like me would email the parents with horror stories of how bad their child was driving - just for a cheap thrill.




It could be worse - at least I don't have to deal with this with Caleb - at least I don't think so. Black nail polish maybe but not lipstick, that I know of....




Pray for me. I'm sure by the time I get to #11 I will have almost no hair left and have a nasty Valium addiction.

So When Does He Get His Lightsaber?

Josh finished up his two week spiritual exercises at the seminary this past Sunday. All the young men entering the novitiate were then presented their Jedi Robes, I mean cassocks. He has now officially entered seminary life and is known as Brother Joshua. The novitiate is a 2 year discernment process, heavy on the prayer and light on the study.


Hopefully he won't turn get his legs cutoff, roasted like a hot dog over a campfire and turn to the dark side.

I still think they should give him a Lightsaber too. They can come in very handy for Catholics.

2 Down and 9 to Go

"Honey, two down and nine to go!"

"Do you want me to cry?!"

We went to see Josh off at his seminary over Labor Day weekend. Guess which quote above was said by me and which was said by Sam?

Hey, if you can't laugh you are gonna cry.

So the entire gang of us trooped up to CT to meet up with Josh who was coming down from NH. It was a time to visit, to laugh, to cry, to pray and to just be together as a whole family before Josh starts his seminary journey this week. It's a long trip for him - all of us really. Sam, I and all the kids will be going through it together to some extent.

Giving your children back to God is painful and done somewhat begrudgingly, at least on my part. We keep reminding ourselves that they all belong to God and we are just taking care of them for him and we should be grateful for the time we have with them. And sometimes I actually believe that and feel better. And sometimes I feel like my heart has been ripped out and I've been kicked in the gut.

On the plus side maybe God will figure he owes us one and give us another baby - can't hurt to try ;)

Here are a few of the 100 or so pictures we took over the weekend.

Excuse me, would you like to buy a bible or maybe a vacuum cleaner?

Josh and Alex with Their Godson, Eric

Playing Stratego

Climbing at a Park

All of us

The Reason There are so Many of us...Like I could keep my mitts of her...Please...

Heading North

Leaving in the early AM tomorrow. Heading up to CT to see Josh for the weekend before he enters seminary.

Be back in 3 days (Sunday evening) - auto-posts scheduled so The Donk doesn't miss me.


MM - aka Tennis Genius. We'll take that prayer request with us to seminary.

He's Home

He seems taller.



The little kids have been having fun with him.




His momma is being a momma.



He's got a second High School diploma (New Hampshire to go along with his Maryland one).

He's leaving in 2 weeks...for a long time.

But he's home for now.

Today's Workouts

Josh is home from his New Hampshire school for the weekend. He came home for Father's Day and we also went to an ordination to the priesthood this morning (pictures of that to be posted later).

32 miles cycling this morning before the ordination.

Josh and I went for a 3.2 mile run this afternoon. It was very hot out. Here we are pre-run. He's getting too tall. Or maybe I'm shrinking.



Josh and The Sweet Momma

Day 4 of Rob Held Hostage.

Sam, Lizzie (13), Barbara (12) and baby Eric all flew up to New Hampshire on Friday morning to see our second oldest child Josh at the HS-seminary he goes to. They are having a big Mother’s Day celebration up there. It’s too much stress, money and hassle to take the whole family up there. So Sam’s Mother’s Day present was to fly up there and see her boy. Lizzie and Barbara both babysit like crazy so they asked if they could go (girls aren’t usually allowed at the school and they have never been) if they paid for their own tickets. $49 each way on southwest, cheaper than driving…almost. And of course baby Eric travels wherever the Boobs go. (lucky boy). So that left 7 home for me to keep an eye…not too bad. And no this won’t be a whining post. I know I’m not going to get any sympathy from the mom’s who read this blog and the dad’s will be too afraid to support me.

I dropped them off at the airport at 4:45am on Friday – Sam wanted to get up there as soon as possible. They rented a car and drove to the school. They are staying at a nice widow ladies house that lets us stay for free when we visit. It sounds like they are having a good time…other than eating 4 meals so far off the McDonalds Dollar Menu – yuck. They have eaten at a few real places too. I think Sam is just trying to save money…good wife. The weather has been beautiful up there too.

Here is a conversation we had Friday after she left the airport and was driving to the school.

Me: “did the flight go ok?”

Sam: “yes”

Me: “did you get the rental car ok?”

Sam: “yes’

Me: “what kind of car did they give you?”

Sam: “It kinda of silvery colored”

Silence

Me: “um, what make and model?’

Sam: “I don’t know”

Me: “Never mind I’ll ask Josh when you get to the school.”

Me to myself: ‘Women”

So anyway here it is ‘Day 4 of Rob Held Hostage’ and we are all surviving - sorta. I just did a head count a little while ago and everyone is here. But around 6am the power went out. We have had lots of rain and wind the past 2 days so I guess that did it. I got up when the power went out and went outside. The next door neighbor has power lines down in his backyard and the transformer that is on a pole in the trees in his backyard was on fire. They fire dept hung around all morning watching it burn and making sure it didn’t spread. Not much chance of that in this downpour.

Caleb (15) and I drove over to my dad’s house and swiped his generator. Then we stopped and bought $50 worth of gas for the sucker…that’s enough for a day and a half. We got it setup and I know have the FIOS running so we have internet, phone and the oh so important ‘Dad’s Best Friend’ the TV. I also got two of our refrigerators running and almost as important, the coffee grinder and pot.

6 trucks from the local utility company have just pulled into the court and are back in the woods with chainsaws in the pouring rain…better them than me. So I’m hoping we have power by this evening when my lovely bride gets home. I need to pick her up at the airport around 7pm. I can hardly wait. Man I miss that woman! It’s lonely here without her.

Today is Joshua’s 17th birthday.

My tax deduction for tax-day.
Josh is the oldest boy and second oldest child. He is currently attending a pre-seminary HS and will be going to college seminary in the fall. I’m sure his momma has shed a few tears today especially since she can’t see him on his birthday.

I do know that a few tears were shed on this day 17 years ago. Josh was 15 days late. He was our first home-birth (8 total have been born at home so far) and if he didn’t make an appearance soon, Sam was going to have to deliver at the hospital.
So she manned-up and took one for the team by drinking Castor Oil. Strangely enough the plant that Castor Oil comes from resembles the cannabis plant. (um if you work for the feds…I hope clicking on the cannabis link doesn’t get you sent to Guantanamo - the government is short on humor these days).

Um where was I? Oh yeah, Josh’s birth. Sorry minor flashback moment there. Anyway Sam chugged a small bottle of the vile stuff and waited for things to, um get moving shall we say. And boy did it get things moving. Almost all of Sam’s labors have been 12-hour marathons. This one was more like an hour and a half long UFC contest. He came fast and messy. And after the head came out Sam stopped pushing because she thought he was pretty much out. After we convinced her she needed to push and the midwife helped by yanking on him, he came out. He was very purple-blackish from the lack of oxygen. That may explain the ’blonde moments’ that he has. But he started breathing right away and was fine after that. Sam, who had lost a lot of blood, insisted on taking a shower right away. So I stood next to the shower to help her. Of course with the hot water and blood loss she promptly fainted in the shower. So the nurse’s husband (a friend or ours) who was downstairs came up and we hauled her out of the tub and got her into the bed. No comments please.

So that’s how Josh got his start in this world. He is now an easy-going pleasant (though very competitive) young man. Happy Birthday Son, we love you!