Week in Review: Boring Weeks are Best and What a Small Catholic World Story

Happy Friday!  Let's rewind and play back the tape of life from this past week...

JP bought his first car!  We buy family cars for the kids to use once they can drive, but he is now the proud owner of a 2012 Ford Focus with only 37,000 miles.  The timing of finding the car was great since he started his job this week.  He ordered three pairs of scrubs and got a short haircut and is a professional young man ready to help you if you end up in the Emergency Department, which I hope you don't.

Andrew sent this picture of his Austrian campus this morning:

Snow!  He said everyone has their Christmas lights up and it's so pretty.  Here's a couple photos from his recent adventures in Assisi:

And from Budapest this past weekend:

Declan and Brendan have also been travelling...to a field trip at Plymouth Plantation to learn all about the first Thanksgiving.  I don't even think these kids realize how lucky they are to live where there is so much history!

Brendan had a few sick days this week, staying home with a fever that wouldn't quit.  We walked the dog one day before we went back for naps :)

They suddenly remembered how much fun WAR is to play and many a heated game has been played while eating lunch:

They really do have other clothes besides those Columbia fleeces they are wearing, but they do like how comfy they are and I like how snazzy they look.  My little preppy New England boys.

Eamon and Maggie are helping to lead the Freshman Retreat at their high school today like good doobies,  and it was a pretty nice, easy week to be honest.  Only Alexander had swim practices (Brendan skipped because he was sick) and we skipped piano lessons for the same reason and Declan had one basketball game and a violin lesson and that was about it!  I was also able to complete the FAFSAs for JP, Andrew and Eamon.  I love weeks like this.

Ooooh wanna hear a funny "small Catholic world" story?  

I've listened a bit to a podcast called Abiding Together after my friend Michelle told me about it a long time ago.  The podcast has three woman on it - two moms and a nun.  One of the moms, Heather Khym, went to Franciscan and met her husband at Franciscan (the same college Phil and I went to and met at) and her husband, a Catholic therapist, also has a podcast called Restore the Glory that I found out JP likes to listen to.  The other mom is Michelle Benzinger.

Andrew has made quite a few new friends this semester in Austria and he kept talking about his friend Luke:

I finally found out Luke's last name was Benzinger and put it together that his mom must be Michelle Benzinger from the podcast and I sent Andrew this text:

That was me fainting

I had no clue that Andrew was travelling around Europe with the sons of these well-known podcasters, how fun is that?!  I was telling this story to JP because I knew he would think it was cool that his brother was friends with the son of a podcast creator he listened to, and JP goes "Oh yeah, that reminds me of the time I watched the Passion on Good Friday".  Phil and I looked at each other like, what?  We had never heard this story.  JP continued:

"When I was a freshman at Franciscan, I decided that I should get a group together to watch the movie The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday.  There was about 15-20 of us and I didn't know everyone that was there because people brought friends.  We watched the movie and at the end of it I was telling everyone that Jim Caviezel (who played Jesus) was actually struck by lightning while filming the crucifixion scene, and a guy goes "Yeah I know.  He's my dad."  I had no idea that Jim Caviezel's son even went to Franciscan and he was adopted so there was no family resemblance that would have given it away.  Isn't that crazy?"

Uh yeah, that is crazy, and suuuuuch a JP story.  Kinda like the time he ran into a shirtless Chris Stefanik in a store in Hawaii and was introduced to him by his daughter, with whom he had played on a volleyball team at Franciscan.  JP didn't realize until much later who the dad actually was.  Then there was the *not one, but two* times he was in a line getting coffee and struck up a conversation with a guy with "a really cool accent" that he much later on figured out was Matt Fradd.  As JP explained to me, "I'm sure they actually like when someone is just chatting with them and has no clue who they are".

Have a great weekend everyone!  Chat with someone you do not know, they might be famous ;)