A Year in Review

Well, it's the end of 2007! A brief recap of the past year....


January

Well, lets see, me and sis Megan got our braces on, (where's the picture... can't find it), and Rebecca got her appendix out, around the same time, so we all sat and moaned in pain together. (Very fun!) Another very important occurence was watching the movies "Gods and Generals" and Gettysburg". Why important? Because those are the two movies which transformed me from someone who didn't know anything about the Civil War, and really didn't care, to a person who is fanatically interested in anything pertaining or related to it. If you're interested, I'll write more about that later.


February
My mom read the book "Mother Angelica" by Raymond Arroyo, and our lives were never the same after! First, we heard about Hanceville Alabama and The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Next... well that comes next month! :)

March

All right, next we went down to Hanceville for a Lenten pilgrimage, stopping at Shiloh National Military Park on the way down. (Shiloh is a Civil War battle site, not to mention a place with gorgeous scenery.)


After leaving Shiloh and getting lost in Tennessee at 11:00 at night, we found ourselves in Hanceville. It was very hot, and we were all sick, but we had a wonderful time at the beautiful shrine nonetheless. In fact we liked it so much that... wait, that comes in September.

April
Anthony's 2nd birthday, and we found ourselves immersed in practice for our Little Flowers Catholic Dance and Theater Troupe play "Remember Me".

May

This month was entirely consumed by the play, so I'll put a few pictures here. All of the girls (Me, Megan, Teresa, Rebecca and Mary Rose) had a great time acting with our dad!

Okay, one picture.

June

We got a camper! It's the only vehicle that I have ever seen that can make our large 15 passenger van look small. We named it "Cherry", which isn't terribly original considering it's short for 'Cherokee', the kind of trailer it is. Appropriately, the first song we heard on Cherry's radio when we brought it home was "Every Mile a Memory", by Dierks Bentley.

July

This was a really full month! The first week was spent by Me, Meg and Teresa at the Miles Jesu Ave Cor Marie Summer Girls Camp. (Referred to as 'camp'.) We had loads of fun, as always! The week we got home started Driver's Ed for me! Very fun, and it was the first time I had ever been to a public school. That's finished, and now I'm working on getting in my 50 hours of driving time. During a 1-week break that I had from DE, my family and I headed out to Gettysburg National Military Park in PA. Now that was fun, especially for a huge history and Civil War buff like myself! We also stopped at the Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg MA. But even there we couldn't get away from Civil War lore! Apparently the Union Army was camped on the grounds of the Sisters of Charity (St. Elizabeth's order) in June 1863. The sisters were afraid that a battle would take place there, so they prayed, and instead the battle occurred at Gettysburg.



August

After a lot of thought and prayer, we left the parish of Saint Mary's, where we've gone since I was about 5, so 10 years, and transferred to Saint John's, in a slightly closer town. Us kids resisted at first, but then we met Fr. Ariel, a totally phenomenal priest who loves kids, and now we couldn't imagine leaving. (You should hear his homilies! They're fantastic.)

And this is... us with Father. He's the one with the blue shirt on. (no not the one with his eyes rolled back, the other person with the blue shirt on, the one that's smiling.)

September

The Sandwich Fair! Always a lot of fun. Megan, Teresa and Rebecca were all in the fiddle contest, and I won a "Peoples Choice Award" for a photograph that I took! It's, um let's see, where is it, aha! This one.

Cool, huh?
End-ish of September we traveled back down to Hanceville for a week of dicernment. Are we called to open a Catholic campground down there, or not? We all believe that God is calling us to do this, but for the moment, that pot is on the back burner, but still simmering. We did find a piece of land down there that would be perfect for a campground though....

October

This month was more of a wind-down month, to the best of my recollection. Oh yes, I took my very first collage leval course - Puplic Speaking 101 or something like that. Fun, but the textbook was awful.

November

My blog! Need I say more? Though I must confess, I hated it at first, and asked myself why in the world I started a blog, but then I took a week's break from the computer and am enjoying this web home a lot! (In case thou hast not noticed.)

December

Well, begining of the month, the LFCDandTT did a preformance of the "Silent Nativity", which you saw the slideshow for. I was a townsperson named Miriam, and also the founder/ringleader of TASOK. (Townspeople Against Slave-Owning Kings.) Here I am with two of my sidekicks. Don't we look so fearsom?

Left to right: Havila (AKA Victoria), Miriam (AKA me) and Lydia (AKA Veronica)

And also, of course... Christmas! I haven't gotten a chance to talk about it yet, so I shall now. We spent Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family, and at Midnight Mass, me, Megan and Teresa and Rebecca brought up the gifts! Christmas Day we opened presents and went to dad's side of the family and... opened more presents. I got Teresa the Pirates of the Caribbean 3 soundtrack, which she was very excited about, um, I think. (This year we drew names from a hat, in lieu of buying gifts for each sibling. That way they would get something more meaningful/useful.) The day before Christmas we had the Rockwood Family Christmas Party (Dad's side), and I learned from my great-aunt that my great-great grandfather was in the army during Woodrow Wilsons presidency and was one of the people gaurding the Mexican-American border. Yesterday was the Vimarco Family Christmas Party (Mom's side) and my 17 yr old second-cousin(who knows more about politics than anyone else under 35 that I know) argued politics with my grandpa, mom, dad, his dad, and his uncle for about one hour, with my great-aunt jumping in occasionally. Talk about entertainment for the whole family!

So I think I've caught up to myself. Have a Happy New Year and leave a footnote!

Christmas Day!

In those days a decree went out from Ceaser Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all wen to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the City of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear. The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold I proclaim tidings of great joy that shall be for all people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom His favor rests."

Merry Christmas to you all!

One Month!

Happy One-Month-of-Having-a-Blog Anniversary to me!



Yes, it's officially been one month since I launched my blog!

Oh, and Happy Anniversary to all of you who have been around since I first started!

One Wintry Afternoon...

...I picked up my Kodak Z650 and headed out into the woods. I was soon following very strange tracks, and thought to myself "the game is afoot!" Soon I had in my sight...

some rather unusual creatures. I was not sure of what type they were, as their fur or whatever it was looked rather odd.

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I kept following, and even as I grew closer, they still were unidentifiable.

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After a good fifteen to twenty minutes, the foolish things sat down by a stream. I say foolish, for I had every intention of shooting them and bringing them back with me for identification in my lab.

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I raised my lens to fire upon them and then realized...

Oops! The "strange creatures" were two of my sisters, my brother and my father.

Mea Culpa.
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I then proceeded to have a lovely time practicing my aim upon snow covered rocks

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the creek,

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dead bones with faces

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and lying on my back in the snow snapping at the sky.

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And when I returned home, I shot a few cats too.

What a perfect day!

142nd Anniversary!

I didn't realize until today, but yesterday, besides being St. Nicholas' Feast Day (Happy St, Nick's Day everyone!), was also the 142nd anniversary of the signing of the Thirteenth Amendment, therefore abolishing slavery from the United States. Hooray for all the people who signed it!
While I'm on this topic...
Happy 181st birthday to General George B. McClellan (12/3), of Civil War fame
Happy 168th birthday to General George Custer (12/5), also of Civil War fame
and Happy 174th birthday to General John S. Mosby (12/6) also (you guessed it!) of Civil War fame.
And while I'm at it... Happy 2nd birthday to my cousin Matthew (12/1) who is NOT of Civil War fame.



PS. If anyone has birthdays they would like me to feature/mention/commemorate on my blog PLEASE let me know in the comment box. This can include yours (don't assume I know it), a favorite author, favorite actor/actress, famous person: ex. the Pope (once again don't assume I know it!), or anything like that. I love birthdays!

Enchanted

A brief review for what has proved to be a refreshingly and, quite simply, "enchanting" new fairy tale movie.
As the movie's tagline says it's "The animated world meets the real world". Enchanted is the story of Giselle, an (animated) maiden about to be married to her prince, who then finds herself shipped off to real-world New York City. She has all sorts of adventures, sings new delightfully old-style Disney fairy-tale type songs, and provides many laughs along the way. (She even gets rats and cockroaches to help her clean the apartment she stays in!)
A spoof on all the past Disney Fairy Tales, mainly “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, “Sleeping Beauty”, and “Cinderella”, (though there is a brief reference to King Kong, go figure!), you will sure to be “enchanted”, by “Enchanted”!

Haiku(s)

At the December meeting of the St. Faustina Girls Club that I attend, we wrote Japanese haikus, since we are studying Japan this year. I thought you might like to read the one that I wrote and two that I co-authored with my friend....

The snow on the ground
Lies softly in the moonlight.
Together they shine.
~Amanda

The great Chinese rock
Is looming over the heads
Of spiders below.
~Veronica and Amanda

The toad in the grass
Hops around in great circles
Trying to lose weight.
~Amanda and Veronica

The First Sunday of Advent

O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee
O Israel.

What Fun!

Yesterday we went to our first social event in three weeks! (Thanksgiving is a family event. ;) The first event of the day was a farewell mass and reception for Father Louis Antl, who is leaving for Springfield in a few days. We will miss him! The reception/going-away-party was at Cemeno's, and they very generously donated pizza's and pop for all. (For our group anyways. Can't speak for the rest of the restaurant!)
Following the party, our friends invited us to their orchestra's Christmas Concert as an early Christmas present! The music was absolutely beautiful, featuring Beethoven's 5th Symphony, (the first movement was stunning, in a good way!), "Air" in G, by Bach, Silver Bells, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Carol of the Bells and an encore of Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, to which we all sang along.
And of course, the highlight of the day... folding laundry at the Halbur's before the concert. But done in the company of friends, it was a lot of fun!