Social Distancing Stations of the Cross

I wanted to share an idea for how to be able to celebrate the season of Lent during these crazy days of COVID-19. Masses and most places are cancelled or closed and it makes everything challenging. I normally like to visit a different parish every Friday during Lent to celebrate the Stations. For me it is a little bit like being a pilgrim in my own city. I had already planned out my whole Lent with which parishes we would visit on which Fridays and where we go out to eat afterward, whether that be a soup supper or fish fry at that church or fish house. My parish was even going to host their first fish fry this year. It has been disappointing to delete the might-have-been-plans each week from my calendar.

But we can still go outside for walks right? I know of at least two outdoor Stations in my area. Last year on a half day of school I met my mom and sister at a tulip farm with my children. Then, since it was a Friday, I was able to talk them into walking the Stations at Mt. Angel Abbey. I had discovered these outdoor Stations two years ago when I attended a women's retreat there. It is so lovely and peaceful, walking up the hill to the abbey through a woodland area; each Station has a little shed with the statues inside and the title of the Station written in German above with Gothic lettering. My German side of the family is from Mt. Angel so I like to imagine that maybe my great grandmother or great-great grandmother walked these stations before me.

Also, outdoor Stations are SO kid friendly! You have little toddlers that can't stay still? No problem, they can run around or run between the Stations. Your children never seem to be able to use an inside voice at church? No worries, you are outside and they can use that outside voice without embarrassing you. Cranky child who doesn't want to participate? No big deal, that child can get all kind the personal space they need either walking ahead, behind or sitting in one spot refusing to move. I feel like all of the stir craziness resulting from the pandemic leads to outdoor Stations being a totally appropriate solution for families right now.

Look, by the end I had lost all but one kid. Actually Deuce and Little Miss were pretty good about the whole adventure. They asked or answered good questions about which Station was which and what their little thoughts were about them. Those two can be quite pious if you get them in the right mood.

We also enjoyed how so many of the little sheds had been decorated for Lent.

All Souls Day

I like to visit the cemeteries and bring white carnations, or whatever white flowers I can get my hands on at the grocery store that morning, on All Souls Day. My Grandmother has been helpful in showing me where to find our relatives and I like to think that maybe me following in my great grandmother's and grandmother's footsteps will be carried on by my children in the future. Time will tell; already the boys have no patience with this exercise. Haha.

It was a beautiful day today which made me too ambitious; I decided to go to 5 cemeteries. Little Miss seemed to enjoy the whole day, the boys were less than thrilled. I had to do some bribing with Dairy Queen that we happened to drive past on our way to the last cemetery. First we drove way out to Mt. Angel where my great grandmother's family lived. There are two cemeteries there. My great-great grandparents are at the modern one on the outskirts of town, as well as a few of my great-grandmother's siblings and their spouses. Since this was the first stop Deuce was respectful and into the care-taking, carefully cleaning moss off the graves.

Two of my great grandmother's brothers who died as children are buried at the old cemetery in town. Little Miss was very into having her photo taken AND making prayer hands or sorrowful faces.

On the way back towards the city I decided to stop at a cemetery in the Woodburn area where my great grandparents on a different side are interred in the big mausoleum. I don't know if real flowers are allowed in there or not, there only seem to be fake flowers in there. So I used the sink to clean the ones that were there, they were super spidery. ::shudder::

My great great aunt is also buried at this cemetery. The grounds have this very nice statue for the Civil War veterans.

Then we drove all the way back to town and stopped at the cemetery where most of my close relatives are buried. It was nice to see so many other families out visiting at their loved ones today, although that made for more witnesses of my sons running around like crazy after being in the car so long. Eventually they did come over to say a few prayers with us. Little Miss was a dedicated helper the whole time.

We could have gone home at this point. It would have been the prudent decision...but... I have been doing so much genealogy recently and have been discovering where the Catholic threads of my family tree originate that I really felt strongly about going to visit my great great grandmother whose family was French Canadian. Up until Little Miss was born and relatives were talking about her name, which happens to be a family name, but I did not know that until after the fact, I had no idea I had any French heritage. My aunt was mentioning how she always liked the name of this particular great grandmother of hers, I had never heard any stories about her since she passed long before I was born, and I agreed that it is a beautiful name. As a result I drove past the exit to our house and continued on to Vancouver to visit this new cemetery which has a quite a few family members.

Life leads us in directions we don't always anticipate

Life leads us in directions we don't always anticipate. This has been a rough year for us school wise. The children were all at a new school as a result of Deuce being asked to leave the parochial school they were all attending when he was a couple months into first grade. He has some special needs and although we had been doing our best to communicate every new thing we were learning about him as it manifested, that school's administration had made a career of letting go of children with specials needs or behavioral problems. As a Catholic it was heartbreaking. But it never occurred to me to blame the church, I believed that God would still take care of our family even if that parish would not. So after a school year of 2 at one school and 1 at a second parochial school, which is beyond difficult and was a hardship on our family, we moved them all to the second school. It was very sad for T-Bone who had been at that first school for six years. We hoped that with activities like soccer and basketball he would have a bridge to his old friends. But he wasn't fitting in at the new school as we had hoped. He felt like he was the class punching bag. And while the new school was much more accommodating of Deuce's special needs he was still getting himself into trouble on occasion. I swear I have like PTSD or something from him being asked to leave the old school and so I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. How much would be too much before the new school would decide they didn't want him anymore either? I had been discerning since the spring whether or not homeschooling him would be the best option for us; one that would relieve us from the stress of calls that he was getting in trouble at school because he was doing the things that other students were daring him to do or that he was falling asleep in class as a side effect from his medications.

In the spring I began reaching out to people I know who home school, asking for recommendations for curricula, picking their brains on how it all works, and lurking on facebook home school groups. I also called in to the special ed person at the neighborhood public school to see what kinds of services they could provide for him if we chose to send him there. One benefit of public school is that at least they can't kick your kid out. Which brings up my position that public schools educate children with special needs because they have to because it is the law. Catholic parochial schools should be educating children with special needs because they want to because it is the right thing to do. It seems like the antithesis of being pro-life to do anything less. I hoped that we could keep them all at the same parochial school together.

But then it became clear that that was not to be our path. After months of discernment, and some heated conversations between the two of us, we decided that I would homeschool the boys. We made this decision so soon before school is scheduled to begin. Yikes! When I was at my friend's housewarming party last month I was speaking with her sister-in-law who had homeschooled her four children and now that the youngest is in high school, she offered me a ton of her textbooks and things that she will no longer need. What a gift!

So today I drove out to the town where she lives to pick up everything. Of course I always try to accomplish at least two things when I am driving somewhere so I decided that stopping for an outing at Hagg Lake would be fun and allow the children to burn off some energy.  I had never been there before, but now that we are boat owners it seems like good sense to check out all the canoeing spots that are close to home.  It was very hot and I soon regretted that I hadn't packed swim suits for them so wade into the lake. Instead they entertained themselves with chucking rocks in to see who could make the biggest splash.

And building a bridge.

I'm cautiously optimistic about home schooling the boys. We could have more opportunities like this. And I am forever grateful to the friends and who are sharing their knowledge and giving me free books. I have a lot to learn so I need to get busy.

Housewarmings and Fudge

One of my friends from high school and her husband recently became first time homeowners so when I received the house warming invitation I was quick to accept to be there to celebrate their achievement with them. Then a couple days ago I mapped it out so see how long a drive it would be... 1 hour and 40 minutes. She grew up in a small town nearby and her commute to get downtown for high school was one hour. I know she laments how much her hometown has grown unrecognizable with all the new development. And she has been living in a suburb since graduating college. The Metro area is experiencing so much growth and density that one really has to go the distance to find that small town, rural feel, but, boy, she is really out there!

I wanted to get them something useful and local to welcome them to their new town so I looked up the local hardware store in Willamina to see if I could get them a gift certificate. As new homeowners one quickly learns that something is almost always in need of repair and it is beneficial to know your local hardware store. I explained what I was looking for and why and while they didn't have formal gift certificates, after consulting with another shop keeper told me they could write up something for me. That is good customer service.

It was so nice to see my friend and get a tour of their new home. Her husband was handing out beanie babies to all the children in attendence so my two were thrilled. We don't get to see each other often with our schedules so I am so glad I was able to have this opportunity to chat and catch up. I was also able to catch up with her family whom I haven't seen since her bridal shower I hosted a few years ago. Their new home is perfect for them and I am so happy.

It seemed a shame to drive so far and not make it a compound journey so I decided to make a side trip to the Brigittine Monastery to get some fudge. I love their fudge and I buy it any time I see it in a store or at a festival like Oktoberfest. I haven't been out to their monastery gift shop since before I had children. When we arrived I explained that we wanted to be respectful in this sacred space. As we were walking through the garden Deuce was so filled with the spirit that he knelt down to say a prayer by the statue of Mary.

He read the sign for Our Lady of Consolation and we had an opportunity to talk about what that meant and add it to their vocabulary.

A monk met us at the door of the main building and led us to the gift shop where we were able to sample the fudge. I could go crazy in there but decided to limit us to two boxes.  Deuce decided his favorite was the extra dark chocolate fudge. I picked the hazelnut chocolate fudge because what is more Oregon than that?

It was a very long day of driving in the car and I really appreciated their patience and pleasant attitudes. They totally earned their fudgey snacks today!

Pickling

We went to a birthday party at a farm on Sauvie's Island and before we left we checked out the farm stand.  They had pickling cucumbers AND dillweed so I bought a big bag to make some pickles. It's been several years since I've done it, and this year I actually followed through. (I think last year I bought cucumbers, but couldn't find dillweed and the cucumbers went bad.) I had stocked up on apple cider vinegar though so I had everything I needed with the exception of garlic.

I used this recipe as a guide. I bought a huge bag of pickles though so I had to quadruple it. I also decided to cut the cucumbers into spears this time so that I could fit more of them into the jars. I was worried I didn't have enough wide mouth jars and I was right. So I did a quadruple batch of spears, then I went to Mirador Community store to stock up on more wide mouth jars and a few other canning tools.

I did the remainder of the pickles as slices for sandwiches. Several of the recipes I saw on line recommend adding grape leaves to the jar to keep the pickles crunchy. I don't have access to those, but I'll have to keep an eye out for them.
 

Canby Dahlia Festival

Somehow I never really knew that dahlias existed until after my dad died. Near the 1 yr anniversary my mom went with me to a tea convention in Victoria, BC and on our trip to the Butchart Gardens I 'discovered them. They are so pretty!  Fabulous gigantic blooms! The following year I decided to try out the Canby Dahlia Festival.  I dressed MLH who was about 2 at the time in one of the dandy rompers my mother-in-law sent him.  It was a great photo op.  As we left the farm I saw signs for the Canby Basil Festival across the road.  We stopped so I could buy some basil for freezing pesto and I noticed they had a train.  Unfortunately it wasn't running during the week, but I planned to return again since it was so close to his birthday.
After verifying the train was running this weekend, we took the boys on Labor Day. We'd have to go early though because my mom had planned her own birthday party for him that afternoon. I had dressed MLH in a dandy romper the first time we went so I dressed the boys in rompers again.  I think this is the last time any of them will fit in these. First we took a few photos on the porch.  5 year olds are fickle when it comes to posing.

 

 

 

 It is a good thing we got there as close to 10 AM as we could because there were already a ton of people there. The weather was still pretty overcast, so I hoped it would eventually clear up as predicted.

 

 

 The boys enjoy being able to touch all the flowers and MLH wanted me to read all the names of the flowers to him.

 The dahlia fields.

 

 He is so sweet in this romper!

 

 Baby Boy  has a new favorite game of bouncing in your arms and laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My favorite ones are always purple!

 Playing a version of the game with Daddy.

 This is the only dahlia with a name I can remember, Checkers.  Very interesting; we both liked it.

 After we bought some cut flowers and caramel corn and went through a bounce house, we crossed the road to the Basil farm and bought tickets for the train. I was a little disappointed because on the website they have a shiny, black engine.  When we arrived there was a schlumpy little engine named Sparky. Cue sad trombone.
The boys didn't seem to mind at all though!

 This is his "I'm so excited to ride a train for my birthday!" face.

 The train ride is about 20 minutes, that includes two trips around the track and stopping once to pet the barnyard animals.  If we get pets again after my cat Mortimer goes to the giant litter box in the sky I'd like to do bunnies. They boys enjoyed the bunnies.

 

 

 They also enjoyed feeding the chickens.  I was interested in getting city chickens until Mr. W told me I would have to kill them when they stop producing eggs because he won't do it.  So I'm rethinking it for now.

 

 

 

 The boys with Sparky.

I should add that it wasn't the best planning to have the boys in these dandy rompers while out with farm animals, but I was pleasantly surprised by how clean they stayed. Well done, boys! Hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did!