Another photo review...

 Another quick life in review: We have had our first week of Advent preparation - Christmas preparation is happening in stages this year. We found the Advent wreath and our countdown calendar at the top of a box, thanks to thinking ahead when repacking last year.  We hosted the Young Life group on Monday, so I pulled out the house lights last weekend, and we set up a few greens around the house. Then on St. Nicholas day we set out the shoes - I remembered chocolate coins on time this year - and after a trip to the Post Office to send off some treats to the college students in time for finals week - we set up the nativities and a few more trinkets around the house. Today, for the second Sunday of Advent, I got out the stockings and bought some poinsettias.  We'll probably wait to get a tree until next weekend and just string lights until the boys come home from school on the 19th. I sort of like this gradual preparation. Annie made gingerbread men today, so the first batch of Christmas cookies is in the freezer.

This weekend was the first rush of holiday events. Friday was the kick-off to the local events - "Snow Mountain" and the Christmas parade down main street. Then Saturday was packed: The first four hours I spent at the home school mothers' retreat, which was preached by a Nashville Dominican who is teaching in Phoenix. She gave a wonderful talk, delivered with humor and wisdom, about the parable of the talents, reminding us that the talents are not just our gifts that we must use, but our burdens that can also bear fruit. She led off the talk with an anecdote about the bishop of Phoenix sharing his prayer of the week: "Lord, deliver me from the temptation of wishing things were otherwise."  I am frequently guilty of giving in to this temptation, as you may have noticed if you read this blog... In fact, I had stayed up late the night before wishing for our situation to be otherwise. One of the kids had said something cutting deep that made me wish  I were, yet again, a better mother - at the same time an email about school issues made me wish I were a better teacher - something that would come at the cost of being a better mother. The point was to find ways to be grateful for where we are, and to form our intellect and will to see the good of our situation. In some ways, I chafe against the idea that we should always embrace the "now" because frequently I wonder if change, even drastic change, might sometimes be a good thing - motivated by a desire for a greater good. But maybe that is wishing for things to be otherwise. And I wish I had taken notes because now some of her other insights escape me. The morning retreat and time for fellowship did make me think again about home schooling next year, although I have mixed emotions about it - mainly because I feel I don't do a good job.  Back in the day, I thought, "If I only had fewer kids, I"d do a better job." Now it's "If I only had more kids... "

After the retreat, I changed into outfit number 2 for a "Twelve Star" reception on base. This meant it was hosted by the admirals, whose stars add up to 12.  I can't remember the exact configuration now. We shook hands with a lot of flag officers, but I think there were 4 three-star admirals who were the official hosts. This was the kind of event where you make small talk for a couple hours and nibble on delicious snacks that you want to gorge on, but no one else is really eating because you don't want to have food in your teeth or eat up all your lipstick before you greet someone else. It actually wasn't as stiff as I anticipated, and we ran into a few friendly acquaintances we have seen for a while, so it was worthwhile.

When that ended, we dashed by the commissary, grabbed stuff for me to make a salad for our next event, and headed home. Got the five-year-old ready for a friend's pig-themed birthday party and sent her off with her sister, while I left in outfit number 3 (or 4 if you count my running clothes from the morning) for the spouses' Christmas potluck and ornament exchange, a slightly awkward event, but still again, an opportunity to connect with friends we haven't seen for a bit. I was so happy when I finally got into outfit number 4, comfy jammies to watch an Office Christmas special with the older teens on the couch.

With so many events crammed into the last weekend, we should have a fairly relaxing Advent. I'm reading Scott Hahn's  Joy To the World for book club, perfect for the season - helping me stay focused.

Below are a few of the events that were photographed last month.

Recent morning run: "Penelope" watching over the bay

Christmas parade! Santa on the fire engine with a cute elf we know...

"Snow" in Socal. Mountain of hay bales..

Another pic of our daughter as the friendly elf - a perk of working for the rec. center 

Grantham the sloth dressed for the holidays

From Dad's work - reconfiguring the dunes 

A funny on the theology professor's door

Skateboard artist

At the library with my workout clothes on, whom should we meet by Immaculee Ilabigiza

My running partner

A view of turkeys on the hill in Julian, CA

Getting up close and personal with the heron at Living Coast

Cross country season's last race

Flashback to Day of the Dead altar at church

I found this on my phone after LK and I had coffee with a friend -
artistic posing of Halloween gift, getting real with my chin

Bob and Minnie came for a Halloween visit. Our friend at church, Miss Ginny, made the dress

Scout awards... almost Eagle...just some paperwork left

Mother-daughter bowling date

First college admission, plus an invitation to apply to their Honors program. 

The last days of February

Being back on a college campus to visit the older boys always brings me joy. I love walking around the quads, eating in the dining hall, sitting for coffee in the basement of the Arts and Letters building, going to Mass in the beautiful basilica where so many young heads bowed in prayer gives me joy. It all brings back memories, although the campus has changed; there are lots of new buildings, and older ones on the main quad are slated to be bulldozed and rebuilt. I'm not sure how the university funds all this building nor why they are spending so much on structures and infrastructures.

It also brings to heart the fact that campus is the boys' home most of the year now.  And they will be returning to our home less and less. Someone in the university world must have realized that Junior year marks a transition when they planned this parents' weekend.  Students are looking for summer internships and trying to make job decisions about the future that may take them far from home. They are turning 21, and some have real relationships that may become lifelong ones. I enjoyed meeting the boys' friends, who seem like well-meaning, earnest, and hopeful young people.  I think they are discovering the consolations of having long hours for studying and talking late into the night.

The weekend has a loose program but leaves plenty of time for visiting. I arrived late Thursday and stopped by campus for a quick hug and to drop off some clothes I had brought. Then I stayed with a friend whose husband now works for the university. Friday morning, I met the boys for breakfast at my favorite coffee shop on campus, and then went to Italian class with my second oldest, because the junior had two engineering classes on Friday that I don't think I could have stayed awake for. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in on the small Italian class, which is a condensed conversational class geared for the students going to study in Rome next year, including all of the architecture students (not all were in this class.) The professor was a British woman teaching Italian at an Indiana college. She was funny and charming. I wished I could go to more humanities classes, but Ben had studio after lunch and Joe had an engineering class. After having lunch at the dining hall with some of the boys' friends (the girls were glad I got to lay eyes on some of the young ladies who show up in Ben's instagram posts), Joe walked me all over campus (that night his fitbit, which he received free + $20/month for being a part of a professor's study on college students and sleep, read over 20000 steps - over 10 miles) to show me the new buildings and his favorite places. Walking and talking, my favorite combo. 

While they were in their afternoon classes, I went back to my friends' to change for the evening. I had the wrong clothes all weekend, since I don't have dress up clothes for the winter. (Now I want to revamp my whole wardrobe, which is out of date and too casual.) Then back to campus where I met the boys at Mass and then took them out to dinner in South Bend. We went to a restaurant, Fiddler's Hearth, that didn't exist when I was there. It was a great recreation of an Irish pub, and the food was surprisingly good, even for Friday in Lent. We didn't stay late enough to hear the band, which was setting up as we left to go back to campus for the Friday gala, which involved walking around meeting parents and students and trying to talk over loud music. Since it was Friday in Lent, I didn't have any wine, but many of the other parents did. This is the kind of event where I missed my husband, who stayed home with the other kids (he'll go back to campus for a football game next fall); he is much better at small talk than I am.

Saturday was equally full. The morning was devoted to a breakfast and open house with the engineering department. I did really enjoy hearing the head of the college and the head of the mechanical engineering department speak about the application of engineering toward making the world a better place. Although they mentioned the employability of engineering majors, they also spoke about contributions engineers make toward humanitarian causes - sustainable energy and access to resources for people in underserved areas, prosthetics, nanotechnology and improvements in medical treatments and computing - and the one professor tied his talk to Levin from Anna Karenina and his advancements in agricultural technologies and practices. He claimed the book was more Levin's story than Anna's. The way to a liberal arts major's heart...

The rest of Saturday afternoon was spent having lunch at the dining hall, going to the track meet, where I relived old meets, but forgot to watch a neighbor's daughter race, and then on to the Mass and dinner for 3500 people.  I enjoyed meeting Joe's friend's parents, but again felt my shortcomings in the ways of small talk and dressing up. Only later did I think of topics I could have brought up to ask about. 

Sunday morning we met again for Mass at the basilica so we could go with Ben, and then went to breakfast at a fun little cafe in town that had a Cajun theme. The food was decent but more entertaining was the band that sang covers of "Freebird" and bluegrass.  We lingered over coffee and conversation. Then back to campus for another walk in the snow that had fallen Saturday night.  But eventually, the time came to say goodbye so the boys could go back to their studies and projects. We said a prayer at the Grotto for close to a weekend that was both exhausting and exhilarating. 

From South Bend, I drove to Chicago for dinner with two of my alumnae friends. I had my own discussion late into the night with college friends, whom I stayed because I was flying home from Chicago. It was a reminder of the blessings of friendships that endure despite time and distance.  On the flight I finished the book on literary friendships, A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. It beautifully illustrated the consolation of having a friend, even if only a pen pal, like Marian Lewes and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who understands your challenges and responds with similar vulnerability. It also revealed a side of these authors that doesn't often show up in biographies.  Just when you think you've heard or read all of the details of Jane Austen's life, someone shows up with a packet of letters that reveals another facet. And I didn't know much about the life of the later two authors. George Eliot/Lewes friendship with Stowe and Woolf's friendship with Katherine Mansfield both offer windows into fascinating minds during fascinating times.

I read this book at the right moment - when sitting down and writing letters of appreciation and affection is on my heart. In between this reminder and the Lenten resolution suggested by Mrs. Darwin and birthday season, I have been writing more letters.  February contains the birthdays of two of our three oldest. Number three turned 18 on the first and number 2 just turned 20. It is Irish twin month for the two oldest. My memories of the days when they were all three little together is a blur. I wish I had recorded more of their lives.

But I also love who they are right now as young men. I don't want these days to be forgotten either. I don't take as many pictures of my big, often grumpy kids as I do my small, cute kids. But I've started doing that more. I need to get them off of the camera, though, and into an album.  Here is a bit of what I would print.

Last Sunday all the kids were home before the oldest returned to campus.

Not a birthday haver, but a fourth rugby player.

Happy 18th Birthday to James!

This might look like cigar, but it is a roll of chocolate Necco wafers. He did go buy a cigar just to do it later in in the day.

The 15 year old about to go to a dance.

Hiking in the Cleveland National Forest with the boy scouts.

The Friday gala

Meeting for coffee at Waddick's, the place that has my favorite Irish soda bread in the whole world

St Joseph teaching Jesus about carpentry - or Jesus teaching Joseph about the scriptures? - a beautiful statue in the engineering building at Notre Dame.

The beautiful chapel in one of the new classroom buildings - maybe engineering

Joe giving me a tour of the beautiful Jordan Hall of Science, another newer building with a great mini museum of skeletons.

From the Snite Museum of Art, A Visit from Death. 

Some places on campus remain unchanged, such as the Grotto.

And the view of St. Mary's lake

And studio... Ben drafting in the same room where I used to visit his dad years ago. But a new architecture building is under construction.

Enjoying a walk around the lake.

Another place I used to spend a lot of time: The indoor track. A meet was going on Saturday, so we went to watch. But I totally forgot to watch for my neighbor's daughter. Can I blame jet lag?

Saturday night snowfall

After the mass and dinner. I felt underdressed the whole time.

Enjoying the music and food at Chicory Cafe after Sunday mass.

One last walk around the lake.

Alma mater

Another pretty statue on campus, a tender depiction of the Holy Family.

Saying goodbye outside of one of the original libraries, now the architecture building, but soon to be remodeled, hopefully not torn down.

Fall's return

Midway through September, Fall's cooler weather has yet to return.  Neither have we quite returned to the semblance of a regular routine. Schedules are still in flux. Houseguests are still coming and going. But the initial flurry of back to school parent meetings and fee deposits have slowed, and I predict that by the end of the month, we won't be doing the constant checking "What do you have tonight?"

This school year the kids are in even grades, and we again have a senior in high school, but no kids in elementary school. While I should be more prepared for the senior year stress, it still has the capacity to cause blood pressure to rise.  Why didn't he do more preparation over the summer?  Why didn't I have more conversations with this son about vocation and life purpose and the meaning of education before this moment? While he has made a stab at writing a personal statement, the current drafts aren't memorable essays. But now the craziness of a heavy load of school work has descended. This same son is still working at the candy store and half-heartedly participating on the cross country team.

And yesterday I cause more stress by killing his and his sister's guinea pigs by leaving them outside too long.  They were in the shade, but apparently it was warmer than I realized. When I brought them in, they both were panting.  There was a moment when I thought they would revive, and another moment when I considered taking them to the vet for IV fluids, and then the moment that I realized first one, and then the other, weren't going to make it. Woe! They were only pet store rodents, but they have cute faces, and suffering and death are always hard to witness.  I couldn't bring myself to do anything to hasten their death, even when I realized it was inevitable. Instead I spent a good part of the day trying to cool them and give them drops of water and gentle pats and fretting about taking any action beyond palliative care. The three year old was quite attentive, and she heard me talking to the vet and wanted to go. I almost thought it would be a fun field trip, but the cost of IV fluids would have been many times more what we paid for these pets, who were often ignored and who had no great chance of survival anyway.  I tried to channel my inner farmgirl attitude towards small animals, but still it is difficult to be the cause of death of a small cuddly creature that your child loves.

In better news, we spent the past two weeks hosting my husband's parents, who came out to California from Oklahoma with a loaded camper trailer, following the path of the Joads. They came for my husband's promotion to captain, which barring some unforeseen event, will likely be his terminal rank.  The ceremony does not have the pomp and circumstance of a change of command or a retirement, but it is traditional to host a party afterward. We just had pizza, cake, and beer and wine, and invited military and civilian friends, and in addition to my in-laws, hosted my cousins and my brother-in-law and his family. It wasn't a huge event planning wise, but all were in good spirits.

We took the grandparents to a few San Diego sites, the most unique being a new facility for special warfare communities which was a building project my husband has been working on. But they were mostly content to just hang out with us and to enjoy their camp spot on the bay. Which, as you can see in the photos, had a great view.  They stayed at an MWR facility, as my father-in-law is a retired 28 year Coast Guard veteran. These types of recreation sites are one of the oft overlooked perks of military life, and the quality of this particular location is outstanding. This trip was a major drive for them, but it came off without incident. They are still on the way home, taking their time stopping at the Grand Canyon and Santa Fe. We pray the return will be similarly rewarding so that they'll come again!

The grandparents' view with kids on paddle boards

Administering the oath of office

Circa 1996 commissioning as an ensign. Note 1 bar

Attaching the new shoulder boards

Cap'n Cook

Interior of the iconic I-bar, familiar to many from Top Gun

A change of command ceremony for my husband's outgoing/incoming bossses on the USS Midway. Note the proliferation of white uniforms. 

Our friend, a Navy doctor, paired up with another doc and had a much more elaborate promotion party, which is called a wetting down. We joked that they thought it was a wedding down. They rented a venue and had this lively live band.

Labor day weekend pool fun

Enjoying the warmth of a mid September sun.