A Recap of Summer 2015

It is hard to believe that Summer is over.  All those beautiful days of freedom both for me and children are gone.  It was such a relief to send the children out not worrying about what they were wearing, not checking what shoes they put on and not counting the minutes of how long they have been outside.  I love the summer weather.  Hey I grew up in India so how I can I not love this hot weather.  This summer I made sure that we stayed outside as much as we can because I totally hated last winter especially keeping a hyper restless 4 year old inside the house.  I would say this was a summer that I gave full freedom to my children for being outside.  In fact, that's all they did.  We did not have any routine or schedule.  It is difficult to go back and remember everything we did but I am so glad I took pictures of most of the stuff we did and I hope to include all of it here so that I can always look back to this post on what we did during summer 2015.

George and Anna spend a lot of time riding their bikes.   This summer we got George his first new bicycle.  We were not planning on but he did not give me any sleep for almost two weeks that finally we just decided to go buy one from Wal-mart.  We were just waiting to see if we could get a used one and not spend money on a new bike.  But it all worked out at the end because George loved it and he used it to the maximum in the few months he had to be outside.   We did not even have to teach him, he picked it up on his own, with training wheels. 

 We also did plenty of park time.  Since now Anna can walk and run side by side with George it was fun to watch both of them play together in the park.  Anna’s favorite spot is the swing though.  Once she gets on it there is no coming out of it.  We had to take her home most of the time in tears since she wouldn’t leave the swing.

 

We tried going to mass every day.  The best part of our lives is when we can receive our Lord into our hearts every day.  Also the best gift we can give our children is to take them to Jesus as often as we can. 

We had pool time not a lot but just enough to enjoy.  We also borrowed my friend fire pit and had evening fire in the backyard.  This was one of my favorite parts.  I loved being outside with the fire pit, playing guitar and singing some praise songs worshiping the Lord. 

We had a lot of yard work done in the beginning of summer.  All credit goes to my wonderful husband for making our backyard look so nice.  He did a lot of hard manual labor, loading up mulch in the van and bringing it home to the backyard.  He had to do several loads to finally fill up the back side of our yard and the garden area.  It looked beautiful and due to that we did not have to fear any mosquitoes because he cleared up all the dense areas by pulling out all the extra lilies we had. 

As usual I planted the seeds in my vegetable garden in late May and here are the fruits of my garden work by July. I love gardening but its getting harder now that I have the two little ones following me around wanting to know everything I do.  George actually helped me plant the seed and was a very good learning experience for him to see them grow.

Along with all the outdoor activities they did not forget to play every minute they got inside also.  We had several nature walks and exploring the backyard, playing in the rain puddles.  What a fun summer and even though it is over so many memories to cherish during winter.  I still have not covered everything we did this summer but half of it is included here.  I hope to post more of our summer adventures especially meeting Pope Francis in the coming days.

Exploring a sakaida

George's First Dentist Appointment

I took George for his first dentist appointment.  He was very scared.  There is a reason for him to be scared of the dentist.  The past one year every time he hesitates to brush his teeth I scare him by saying that when he goes to the dentist he is going to pull his tooth out because he did not brush it.  This helped me to get him to brush every morning.  Finally it was that day to go to the dentist.  To tell you the truth I was very worried too.  What if he starts panicking, crying and won’t listen to the dentist… a thousand questions started popping in my head.  Despite all these fears I tried hard to convince him that everything is going to be okay and he will have a wonderful time.  

We reached the dentist’s office and waited at the lobby.  Thankfully they had coloring sheets and he tried to color (he hates coloring lol).  He kept asking me where the dentist is.  Finally they called him and we went it.  

The dentist was super sweet and so adorable that George became best friends with her.  She was just amazing.  She entertained him for the next 30 minutes as she was doing all the work on his mouth.  I even enjoyed being there just watching them.  She made him feel like he was a super star.  She gave him golden sun glasses which he absolutely loved.  He got to wear it the entire time. 

Look at my happy little boy.  Words cannot express how much I enjoy being in his presence and hearing all this non stop chatter.  He is a very special boy with so much joy and enthusiasm in his heart.  He loves people and spending time with them.  He loves to make friends not just with younger ones but especially with older people.  He actually talks to our neighbors more than us.

He had a great time at the dentist's place.  He cant wait to go back there.  He made good friends with the dentist.  He got some free gifts, a new brush and paste, and the dentist also gave him a Tshirt.  I think I would take him there more often because I also had a great time just watching the joy in my boy's eyes. Love you my Georgu.. It is an honor to go with you to places and just watch you interact with others.  You are very very special to me and you have the biggest place in my heart.

St. Maria Goretti's Feast day

In the month of July we celebrated few feast days and one of them was St. Maria Goretti’s feast day.  There are so many feast days in a month and yet I don’t get to celebrate all of them.  I also don’t pick and choose which saint’s feast days I celebrate.  There is always an inspiration I feel within myself on some feast days which encourages me to celebrate it in small and big ways.  I always keep some cake mixes stored up so that way whenever I get this inspiration to celebrate a feast, I can always make a cake or cup cakes to make it special.  

St. Maria Goretti’s feast was one of those inspirations and we prayed during our morning prayer in a special way to this young saint who stood up for her purity.  In the evening we made cup cakes.  Actually George made the cup cakes himself.  I just helped him with few things. 

 Since I had the craft items needed to make Lilies as a sign of her purity, we tried to make them as well. 

 Once the cup cakes were done we came together as a family to pray to the saint and we had cakes together.   It was a simple celebration yet meaningful for the little ones. 

Last week I came to know that St. Maria Goretti's  incorruptible body is being brought to one of our churches close by and we will get to go see her.  What a blessing, I thought to myself that we get to see her body and pray to her in person.  I felt like it was a special blessing from this dear saint for honoring her by celebrating her feast day. 

This is not the first time it has happened to me that when I celebrate a feast day I see very visible signs of blessings from that particular saint.  Two years ago after I celebrated St. John Bosco’s feast day something like this happened.  The first Syro Malabar bishop that was appointed for the diocese of Australia was visiting our parish and his name was Bishop Bosco.  It was a great blessing to have him celebrate mass for us and spend some time with the CCD teachers of our parish.  As he was speaking to us CCD teachers, Sony was holding Anna who was only 9 months old at that time.  Bishop Bosco came and just carried her and held her in his arms as he was talking to us.  When he was done one of the priests introduced him to us and he gave us a special blessing and he offered us a prayer card of St. John Bosco.  I felt like it was also a gift from the saint to have the Bishop who is named after John Bosco to give us a blessing and also a prayer card of this Saint.  Not only that he carried my little girl in his arms all that time while he spoke.  Which bishop does that?? haha

I truly believe that these are visible signs that they sent us when we honor them,  reminding us that we are in communion with them.