Wordless Wednesday

Night swimming . . . it’s the best!

We Are In Maryland

We made it to Maryland on Saturday afternoon around 6 PM. We left at 3 in the morning from Alabama. We stopped several times for fuel, food, restroom breaks . . . and everyone did real well in the car . . . only the last two hours the girls started with  . . . “are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet?”

We went to the Basilica of the National Shrine and Franciscan Monastery in DC yesterday with the Landry family and had a blast.

More to come . . . keep checking back.

End Of Junior Master Gardener For Now

I blogged about Gabriela’s Junior Master Gardener last year <here> and how much she loved it. The homeschool program came to an end today and she received this beautiful ‘Growing a Vegetable Garden’ certificate of completion. Gabriela will still be in JMG, but with a different group and not homeschool and she will only go once a month instead of twice a month.Great job Gabriela!

The teacher, Miss Vasha gave each students a CD of the JMG Journal. You can read below (unfortunately the journal below is not an iPhone, iPod Touch nor iPad compatible, you have to read it the old fashion way . . . computer!)

Gabriela's JMG Journal

The Count Down Begins . . . Vacation Time!

So it begins . . . 4 more days until we depart for our vacation to the State of Maryland, the State where Coby and I spent our engagement live. We hope to eat a lot of blue crabs and visit the Inner Harbor, visiting friends and much more. I’m hoping the internet connection will cooperate with me so we can keep up the blog while on vacation and post a lot of photos. Keep checking back!

Dies Irae (Day of Wrath)

 This is is a famous poem from thirteenth century the poem describes the day of judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.

Very intense piece by Karl Jenkins from his album: Requiem, but very beautiful if you read what the poem’s all about (see below)

1. Dies iræ! dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla: Teste David cum Sibylla!	Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophets' warning, Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
2. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando iudex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus!	Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth, when from heaven the Judge descendeth, on whose sentence all dependeth.
3. Tuba, mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum.	Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth; through earth's sepulchers it ringeth; all before the throne it bringeth.
4. Mors stupebit, et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Iudicanti responsura.	Death is struck, and nature quaking, all creation is awaking, to its Judge an answer making
5. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus iudicetur.	Lo! the book, exactly worded, wherein all hath been recorded: thence shall judgment be awarded.
6. Iudex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet, apparebit: Nil inultum remanebit.	When the Judge his seat attaineth, and each hidden deed arraigneth, nothing unavenged remaineth.
7. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, Cum vix iustus sit securus?	What shall I, frail man, be pleading? Who for me be interceding, when the just are mercy needing?
8. Rex tremendæ maiestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis.	King of Majesty tremendous, who dost free salvation send us, Fount of pity, then befriend us!
9. Recordare, Iesu pie, Quod sum causa tuæ viæ: Ne me perdas illa die.	Think, good Jesus, my salvation cost thy wondrous Incarnation; leave me not to reprobation!
10. Quærens me, sedisti lassus: Redemisti Crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus.	Faint and weary, thou hast sought me, on the cross of suffering bought me. shall such grace be vainly brought me?
11. Iuste iudex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis.	Righteous Judge! for sin's pollution grant thy gift of absolution, ere the day of retribution.
12. Ingemisco, tamquam reus: Culpa rubet vultus meus: Supplicanti parce, Deus.	Guilty, now I pour my moaning, all my shame with anguish owning; spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning!
13. Qui Mariam absolvisti, Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti.	Thou the sinful woman savedst; thou the dying thief forgavest; and to me a hope vouchsafest.
14. Preces meæ non sunt dignæ: Sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne.	Worthless are my prayers and sighing, yet, good Lord, in grace complying, rescue me from fires undying!
15. Inter oves locum præsta, Et ab hædis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra.	With thy favored sheep O place me; nor among the goats abase me; but to thy right hand upraise me.
16. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis: Voca me cum benedictis.	While the wicked are confounded, doomed to flames of woe unbounded call me with thy saints surrounded.
17. Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis: Gere curam mei finis.	Low I kneel, with heart submission, see, like ashes, my contrition; help me in my last condition.
18. Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla iudicandus homo reus. Huic ergo parce, Deus:	Ah! that day of tears and mourning! From the dust of earth returning man for judgment must prepare him; Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!
19. Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen	Lord, all pitying, Jesus blest, grant them thine eternal rest. Amen.

Check It Out . . .

If you have not visited CatholicVoteAction.org . . . you should go there and check it out. They have wealth of information about the current states of the Catholic Church and much more. My favorite is the “Papist Picture of the Day” by American Papist Blog. A blog about “important issues facing Catholic Americans”. And since I’m a fan of the Holy Father and the iPhone, I thought I’d post the Papist Picture of the Day  here to share with you.

They are also in facebook!

Photo Credit: AP Photo via American Papist

Benediction May 16: Fr. Miguel Marie

Technology is truly amazing! You don’t have to watch TV in your living room anymore. Unless of course you are a movie goers or sport fans, nothing like watching a movie or sport on the BIG screen, preferably 52 inches or bigger. But I’m talking about being able to watch something like EWTN right at your finger tips. Either it’d be a computer, an iPad, or an iPhone.

You can now watched various programs of EWTN on your iPhone (or iPad) through various means.YouTube:  www.youtube.com/ewtn

Or you can watch it live (online streaming) by going to www.ewtn.mobi on your iPhone or iPad (or any other handheld devices that supports the online streaming).

Above is a YouTube link of Fr. Miguel when he did the Benediction on May 16, 2010.

Wordless Wednesday

Tragedy In The Coop

Some of you may have already heard regarding the invasion in our chicken coop what we think might be the “weasel” on Saturday morning. The picture is pretty gruesome so I’m sorry for posting such a picture, but you have to see the picture to believe it. Half of the chicken’s body is gone, eaten by another animal. We think it’s the weasel, because that is the only animal that could go into the small opening in between the coop and the chicken run. According to the explanation about the “Long-tailed Weasel”, “FEEDING HABITS: . . . the size of the prey does not seem to matter. The weasel has been known to attack full-grown rabbits and will occasionally enter a chicken coop and kill poultry. When prey is plentiful, the long-tailed weasel will store its surplus food. . .”

It was a sad Saturday morning to wake up to something like that. It was Goldie, which is Abigail’s Chicken!

Blessed Sacrament Parish . . . Here We Come!

The excerpt above is taken from Our Lady of Sorrows parish bulletin today and we are so excited and happy for Fr. Booth. As Father Muller mentioned about his homily, it is very good and it hits the spot every time! You can read some of his past homily by clicking here.

We are looking forward to ‘hopefully’ a weekly Traditional Latin Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish.

Congratulations Father Booth, we are looking forward to joining  you at Blessed Sacrament. We will continue to pray for you and your new assignment.

Wordless Wednesday

One rose for our Lady . . .

Mother’s Day At The Botanical Garden

Visiting the Botanical Garden on Mother’s Day is becoming to be an annual tradition for us, and this year the weather was perfect for us. Not too hot, and cool enough but not too cold. We started the day by going to Mass at Sister Servants in Irondale, and picnic lunch at the botanical garden followed by a walk through the rose garden and the rose show.

Although Coby didn’t get to relax with her book on Mother’s day, it was a very enjoyable day looking at the beautiful roses and just being together as a whole family.

Mother’s day hug from Christiana

Happy Mother’s Day

To my dear wife, to my Mama, to my mother-in-law, to all the mothers and most of all to our heavenly mother, our Blessed Virgin Mary, happy mother’s day!

Words cannot describe how grateful we are with your existence. We love you and happy mother’s day!

This year mother’s day flower arrangements comes from our own flower garden.

Wordless Wednesday

Christiana at 15 months @ the Aldridge Gardens

Jesus Christ, Our King, Is Risen!

“Exsúltet iam angélica turba cælórum: exsúltent divína mystéria: et pro tanti Regis victória tuba ínsonet salutáris” (Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels! Exult, all creation around God's throne! Jesus Christ, our King, is risen! Sound the trumpet of salvation!)

Have a Blessed Easter to all of you,our families,our friends, our colleagues! May the joy of Our Risen Lord brings peace and love to all of us.

. . . “Christians  do not “conquer” through the sword, but through the Cross”. - Pope Benedict XVI Image Source: Una Voce

First Cache Location

My first hidden cache located at N 33°12'49.0212" W 87°17'34.0188". You can enter this coordinates in your GPS and find the hidden cache.

New to the hobby of geocaching? Well, I am very new at it! On this first hide, I didn’t put much thought to it and hid it rather quickly and I hope the coordinates is accurate as I want it to be. I think hiding the cache is more difficult than finding it, because you have to make sure that you are not too close to the next cache that a cacher hid (the rule is you have to be at least 528 feet apart). In our area there are a lot of cache everywhere, you can do a quick errand to a grocery store and on the way back you can try to find a cache or two.

Gabriela and I went out on Saturday for quick errands and we found 4 geocaches on the way there and back. Although what we found were small or micro cache which usually doesn’t take that much space to hide. Could be really hard to find or could be really easy, it all depends! But regardless of the sizes, we enjoy hunting for the cache!A micro cache is hanging on the fence the size of a chap stick.

Missed The Wordless Wednesday . . .

. . . but TGIF!

Visitors From Canada

Coby’s brother and his family came down to visit us this week for spring break and we just had a blast. They have 8 children, so as you can imagine, meals are always fun. The preparations, the conversations, the clean up . . . no chaos . . . well behave, and everyone knows what to do. Sixteen people around the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner almost everyday, we just love it!

To the Vandenbergs, thank you for the great visit and God’s willing we hope to see you this summer.

Geocaching Anyone?

We got introduced to Geocaching this weekend by Coby’s family and I’m thinking . . . how come I didn’t know about this before. It involves GPS, outdoors, and internet . . . it is a high-tech treasure hunting and a lot of fun. It’s very inexpensive activity for the family . . . well other than purchasing the GPS (or an iPhone in my case), the rest are pretty cheap. Geocaching activity will get your family outdoors, and some nice weather is coming our way.

We went out several times this weekend to look for some caches (containers that have been hidden by fellow geocachers) and found them all and we log them on the website so the owners of the caches that we found will be able to see the messages that we log. You can read a simple explanation about Geocaching by clicking here.

For those of you who are familiar or a Geocacher, you can add us as a friend: 4SoeCache.

I will update this post once we have a cache of our own to hide.

GCRWDW

GCJFK6

Sick, Sick, Sick . . .

That's all we have around our house this week, we all got the stomach bug. A very powerful stomach bug that travels very fast from person to person. First it started with Coby’s Father, he got it after he got back from the cruise. Two days later, Rebecca got it, and Christiana, Coby and I got it around the same time. Is not finish yet! We have couple more girls, but hopefully they are immune to this bug.

I don’t wish this on anyone, because it is very painful and nasty. Please pray for us!