A Peek Into Their Pilgrimage

This is the Texas group that would include my family plus Kat and her dad and Mr. D and his son Greg all with Fr. Tom Keller.  They are standing on The Rialto Bridge in Venice over looking the Grand Canal.  

 Their view!  Not bad.

 This next picture is full of my most favorite people in the world.

I miss them all so much.  I am tearing up as I type this.  They look so beautiful and so happy.  I miss them all.  From what I heard they all enjoyed Venice but not enough time to see everything  in Padua.

Tomb of St. Mark

J's business life for the past twelve years has centered around C-Stores or Convince Stores.  He knows this in the US market, especially in the South, inside and out.   So when he saw this C-Store  in between Venice and Le Verna he had to grab a shot.  This Espresso bar caught his attention.

This is the site where St. Francis received the stigmata in LaVerna Sanctuary and Pilgrimage Site in Tuscany.

 This is the spot where St. Francis died.

 This is outside the church with the hills in the back ground.  So beautiful!!!!!  They had Internet at this point and were able to share a few photos.  No such luck after that so no more pictures.  That will have to wait until they return home.  I hear that they all loved Assisi.  My hubby says that we will get an apartment there one day and spend some time there.  After they arrived in Rome he said that he will see it all now and never wants to go back.  He has not loved Rome.  It is a dirty big city according to him.  I can't wait to hear what the teens have to say.

The canonization was super crowded and J hates crowds.  He says that "You would think after two thousand years the Vatican would be better at crowd control."  The ceremony was nice but he thought we probably would get more out of it watching it on EWTN.  Again I can't wait to hear the kids thoughts in contrast to J.  So the short of it is that I miss them all so much.  I will have more to share but not until they arrive all the way at home.  I ask you to continue to pray for their safety and their travels.  We can ask all the Saints of Heaven especially the 7 that were added to the churches official roles last Sunday to pray for us.  I humbly ask St. Kateri to guide these special Americans home and to continue to show God's love to each of them.  St. Kateri, Pray for us! 

Finding Fall Festivities in spite of Temps!

Bagel - Jumba - Possible - Princess

Happy Fall

Miss Brenda Visits

 

While the older half of the family was away we had Miss Brenda visit.  She met the twins for the first time and I think they met her approval.

 I had so much fun with her visit this time.   With everyone gone but the little kids, Ms. B and I would stay up late into the night talking.  We had a blast.

Adorable and Beautiful were as cute as could be.

We even got donuts one morning.

First slide for Adorable with Possible.

First Slide with Beautiful in the arms of Pickle.

Even with a chunk of the kiddos traveling, we are still a pretty big crowd.

Ms. B and I went grocery shopping and came home to a decorated living room and a play.

We found that working on puzzles helped us pass the time while we waited to hear from big kids.

We took lots of twin pictures and would text them to dad.  No one was wanting to miss any part of the twins growth.

With them gone. . .

Adorable

Beautiful 

When the big kids left we decided to keep busy.  The big kids got us a puzzle of the Rialto Bridge in Venice to work on.  We planned for a visit from Ms. Brenda and had a blast.  it took a few days to change our routine but once we did things worked out great.  In spite of the generous offers to help us from all of our friends we all picked up the slack in the left over chores that the big kids left behind.  I am so proud of the younger ones.  They ran the house very much like the older kids would have.

 We did have  a flat tire at one point but nothing major.  Other than that flat tire,we had things pretty much under control.

 The puzzle took much of our time but we were racing to finish the puzzle before the big kids made it to the bridge.

 I even made sure I still got to go to my weekly mom meetings.  I took the twins with me and their friend joined us.  So many babies drew us much attention.

Back at home the puzzle was finished and we even took care of a shipment that arrived for Zucchetto.  We had it all under control.

Even though we had things under control our favorite part of the days were when we could talk to the big kids with Skype.

They are off!

The time finally came for the gang to leave.  J and the big kids were headed to St. Louis to meet up with  the other pilgrims so they could go on their pilgrimage to Italy.  This was not something that made the younger bunch at all happy.  

 We knew that this crew was about to have the trip of a life time.  We got up early to wish them well as they set off.  J and I had not been apart for more than 10 days and this was going to be longer.  I missed them before they drove away.

 Lots of hugs and kisses, we even caught the big kids trying to sneak off with the twins.

Good bye guys, we love you and we will pray for you.

We head off early that morning and went to Mass.  I still took like a trip with my 7 small children.  I am always amazed that being out in the world with several young children is a site to many people.  We were feeling a little down and left behind so I also took my crowd out for a nice breakfast.  This was more than enough to shock everyone we saw at the restaurant.  One couple came up to us to talk about our family.  Then as we went to leave we learned that they had purchased our meal.  That was such a nice treat. 

Cute Babies

 Adorable on Left and Beautiful on the Right

I keep posting just pictures of these cutie pies.  I can't get enough of them.  I love looking at these two and the older the get the more I catch them getting closer while playing.