This past week was our first full week of summer, no school for anyone, and you can tell by the size of their smiles that they were happy campers.
Sixth Server
Speaking of camp, our church had their Altar Boy Boot Camp where new servers are trained, but mostly it's a fun three days filled with Mass, sports, food and a big field trip on the last day. This year they went to Archery Games in Providence, RI. Andrew (19) and Eamon (17) were able to help with the training during the camp, and Xander (12) and Declan (10) attended and Brendan (7) became our last little altar server:
You can bet I shed some tears (and chuckles at the mistakes) at his first Mass serving this morning. How blessed are we to have SIX altar servers. God is too good.
Steubenville Conference
Speaking of God (and I hope I always do) Maggie and Eamon went with our diocese to the Steubenville Youth Conference last weekend and Maggie sent me lots of photos and they both said they had such a great time:
Sweet Readers
Remember last week when I told you that we were joining with our library to give away free ice cream to anyone who signed up for Summer Reading? 159 cones were given out!
Evening Swims
The YMCA's in our area opened up their outdoor pools and Phil and I took the littles two nights this week. They would have gone every night but we had other things to do...
... like Track Club which started on Wednesday and is held twice a week for the next month.
Shotput Stars
Xander and Declan were there too, but I only have video of them doing long jump.
Guys, it is so cute when they learn how to throw field events with safe equipment. I could tell by how quickly they picked up shotput that it must be hereditary on the maternal side, as I threw shot in high school :) Hey, when you have a strong arm from scooping, you might as well use it for good.
Softie Not Spoiled
And when you make money from all that scooping, you save up for a new phone like Maggie did, after first getting breakfast with her dad:
She is now the owner of a pink iphone 15 and about $1000 poorer. I recommended an older/cheaper version of the iphone, but her dad who apparently is a softie for his only daughter, told her that she works hard for her money and to get what she wanted. What can I say, we balance each other in this parenting game, and Maggie is the furthest thing from spoiled so you do always want to treat those kind of kids :)
Have a great weekend everybody!!
The three boys look so cute as altar servers! It's great the older ones get to help out with the training. None of my kids (10 of them!) got any official training- it was all on the job, winging it, and hoping there was a deacon or a competent older siblings to help out. (Girls can serve in our parish.)
ReplyDeleteNow, I'm down to my youngest 3 boys serving every other Sunday. And there are no other altar servers in our parish except for 3 who are graduated seniors. So next fall we might be doing every week. But the diocese will be closing our parish ( happening in the next 3 years), so we'll stay with it until the end.
And a new iphone?!? Well, Maggie will learn important lessons about budgeting and consumerism from this. You guys are nice to let her do this. I hope she has a shatter proof case!
So sad that your parish will be closing...I suppose you are facing the same issues as we are with a priest shortage? The Altar Boy Boot Camp has been a godsend for our parish and our kids, we have over 30 servers.
DeleteI would not have let her pick the newest iphone...Phil is nice :) And yes I made her buy a really good case!
Priest shortage, population decline, the usual! We have two other churches in my town, which will stay open. But a lot of the small town churches in my rural area will close. We've/They've been sharing priests for a while, but there just isn't large enough parish population to justify keeping them all open. I just hope one of the other churches does an early morning Sunday Mass; anything after 8am seems so late!
DeleteI wish our YMCA had an outdoor pool. That pool looks very inviting. Wow, Brendan is old enough to be a server. 6 servers is a lot. I take it girls aren't allowed to serve at your parish? Mini and Curly both served. We watched a few of the shot put throws in the Olympic trials. They were so impressive. That conference looks like a lot of fun. Good for Maggie for saving her money.
ReplyDeleteNo girl servers here, but they are sacristans and have their own camp! We had a really great shotputter graduate from our Catholic high school last year and I think he might be in the Olympic one day, for real. We're rooting for him!
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