A Blast from the Past

Saturday was such a festive day for our family! First came to visit the priest who witnessed our marriage in California lo those ten years ago, and then a cousin and her son came to visit!

Chris took the 3- and 5-year-olds out of the house while I rallied the 7- and 9-year-olds to clean the house top to bottom. We were doing a lot more than our normal Saturday cleaning, so I made up a fun game to help inspire the troops. (When I present these things, I'll say something like, "You know you have to do these chores anyway, right? So, do you want to just do it, or do you want to have some fun with it?")

I wrote out all our chores and let them pick what they wanted to do. For the various chores, they would earn poker chips, which would later be turned in for video game time (something they virtually never get). I got their enthusiastic help for about four hours, each vying to do more chores than the other, as they cleaned all bedrooms, vacuumed bedrooms, den, and dining room, polished all the wood downstairs, cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms, washed, folded, and put away two loads of laundry, organized the garage, and helped me cook. The house looked fantastic! And my reward to them? They each earned about fifteen minutes of video game time!

We had a good time housekeeping together.

Fr. Novokowsky, FSSP, witnessed our marriage ten years ago, and was in town for ordinations. I set out heirloom tomatoes with mozarella cheese, fruits, bread rolls with which to make sandwiches (including PB&Js for our kids), crackers, various fancy cheeses, ham, several types of glorious chocolates, plus iced tea and homemade lemonade.

We had such a delightful time!

Fr. Novokowsky and the fruit of ten years of our marriage

The children showed Father all their tricks on the rope swing, and how high they can climb in trees, and then Father played catch with the boys for a while.

The children gave Father a concert and then there was more hilarity: Father is so good engaging with kids of all ages.

Joseph conducting

After Father departed for his next obligation, we did a quick turnover of food in order to welcome half an hour later Chris' cousin and her 21-year-old son, here on an overnight layover. Amidst all the chaos of sugar rushes, staying up too late, baths times five, and bedtime, we forgot to take any family photos. We enjoyed the brief faces and seeing friendly faces from Buffalo!