It's been a long time since I got back to this. This year was crazy busy. Here is the update:
Ryan (33)-I just broke my neck on move day and it has been great. If there is one thing to be sure of in this world, it is that people have a hard time believing in God. For a few main reasons, but one of the most popular is that they can't touch and feel it. They can't see it. Since I broke my neck I have seen God maybe more than I ever have. If you are reading this and you want to see God-go on a mission trip. I don't want to argue with you about God, until you try a mission trip. The "great" part about breaking my neck, has been the unbelievable presence of Christ in the hearts and minds of our friends and family. We have been held so lovingly by meals, prayers, and helping hands that I do not have words to properly express our gratitude and the beauty of it all. The house looks beautiful and I am just so happy to be here with you guys. I could have had so many worse things happen at that moment the cabinet fell on me. It always turns out the way it is supposed to, good and bad, so just ride the wave and enjoy every moment you can. We are so happy to be so close to so much family. Holly, Dakota, Aubrey, Gerry and Ro, Heather, Daltry, Ella, Bart, Mom Mom, Pop Pop, Jimmy, Jill, Julia, and all of Mommies friends from high school. Now we just need to sell grandpa and grandma's house.
I have also started my motorcycle project. I am filming it so that I can try to sell it. It is a little dream of mine, and it is slowly coming true so that is a blast.
Kate (33)-We have moved to Mommy's house in NJ. This is a whole new exciting chapter in our lives. We have new 10 year plan to make our home a place where all kids want to spend their time (friends and family). Maybe a pool will be part of that. Mom is doing great at work and maybe she will be able to get a job in NJ now, as they open the new hospital here. Dad and Mom went on a cruise on Norwegian cruise lines with Elaine and Tom Walsh. We had a great time despite losing an engine and missing a port. Tom and I had adventures in argumentation when the jellyfish attacks cut our scuba diving at the fat lady rocks short. Elaine and Tom Walsh just decided to get us a cruise for February that they paid for with racked up points, so that is a huge blessing.
Kaylee (7)- You have lost 9 teeth and you are great at pulling them out! You had great year at school with Mrs. Woodrow as your teacher in 1st grade. It was hard for you to leave everyday and you struggled with being away from home. I guess that is b/c we have such good time when we are home together. Your reading and writing are excellent and we are so proud when you come up with a story line or idea that you start writing about. We got a piano from Mom's MOPS group church for free and Mark Falcone helped me move it into the newly finished basement in Trappe, Pa. We tried to do piano lessons with John, but you guys would only pay attention for about 15 min., so he recommended we wait longer. I am planning on trying lessons myself with you. Maybe Fri. nights? You managed to leave Claire in Pa (I thought I would find her in your suitcase here for sure)
Aidan-(5)You managed to leave David behind in Pa (again I had to check the suitcase). But he gave you a framed picture to remember him. You have become such a good singer! You love to dance and I hope you will like playing instruments. Your mind is so creative with stories in far off places, but with so much great detail about everything. We are trying to work on violent games being less a part of playtime, but this world makes it very difficult.
Colin (3)-You crack us up! You have so many funny things to say, faces to make, dances to dance, power ranger moves to fashion. You love your brother and sister and are willing to do mostly anything with them. you definitely know how to challenge your parents unlike any other child in the house, but we think that means you have alot of good energy to out towards the right things. We just need to show you good avenues to use that kind of strong will, bravery, and energy. It's very rare that you sleep through the night. You have night terrors that seem to keep you up. Finally, the cliche is here-you love to make mud pies. You will dig for hours and throw in some water and you are good for days. You love to cover your body in mud head to toe. I could have the best toys in the backyard and you are not interested, just point to the old and muddy buckets and shovels because you are good.
We are going to Julia's 3rd birthday party today at Jimmy's in Moorestown, which is beautiful. Renovation to begin soon and make it bigger and more functional. This is the family's 40th year at Ocean City and we will miss it with my rehab and neck brace.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ocean City and spell check
Wow, my spelling is atrocious. I had thought I was using spell check but apparently not. By the time you guys (kids) read this you won't have anything like spell check, because computers will be so far advanced you won't need it. We just got back from a yearly trip we make to Ocean City, Md and we had a great time. We were very out of schedule. You will hear about my schedule craziness later in life as a big joke. I have been going to Ocean City since I was born, every year for mostly two weeks until I got married. Then we started dividing up time to all that we have going on with life and we just don't; have two weeks to devote to something so expensive. It has changed so much over the years but I have such fond memories of growing up with that vacation. Nana would ask us to pack out miscellaneous bags with whatever we felt we couldn't live without at the beach for two weeks and my aunts and uncles wold be rambunctious and loud and we would try to get down the boardwalk as much as possible. We would go there for rides, Candy Kitchen, Dumser's ice cream, and SKEE BALL. Some places still have the old school metal flip scores for skee ball.
These days every time we go down we try to get a COUSINS NIGHT out and finally this year I bought a Fire Dept. shirt from Ocean City. They run 5,000 calls and I run 300. Big firehouse differences. They are almost 100% volunteer still after all those calls and that is very rare. I tell you this all the time, that volunteerism is an important part of making the world a better place, in fact it may save us all from total destruction some day, but that community as well as Trappe and Collegeville simply do not function without it. That is something for you to think about. So we went out and had a great time eating and talking and playing skee ball. Shannon and I always have Air Hockey games and most of the time she wins. She is good at that and Miss Pacman. It is her favorite game. Grandpa was writing in the journal as always and is keeping track of all that happens. I save all of his old letters and have them for you to read about his florida days. Every year he spends 3 months there when it gets cold here. Actually that journal I mentioned is the impetus for this Blog to you three. I can go back to any age and find out what I was doing at Ocean City any given year and it is a blast to read it. It is hard to write it sometimes when you are tired and living in the NOW moment when there is so much to do (I can see a huge pile of dishes in the sink right now) but if you don't work hard through those moments, then you cannot reap the benefits later of sitting back and having a great time reading about them. With me, memories fade fast (I think that I have something wrong with me) but a spark can ignite them fully. Kate can remember almost anything from age 4 and up at the drop of a hat. It is truly a gift. Kaylee, you and Corrine got matching rings to remember your trip by (mom and dad won them at skee ball at night) and she has a new loose tooth and so do you. You just lost your first one a couple of months ago. Aidan loved spending time with Megan and Ryan and Kevin and they enjoyed being bigger and caring for you guys too. Pat and Karey are stopping Alliant studios to venture into other better fitting jobs.
Nana and grandpa are trying to sell the 182 Anthony Place house in Wyckoff, NJ 07481 for a second time. The economy is doing very badly so they have to see if they can right now or if they have to wait, but Grandpa has wanted to move to the Jersey shore for a long time now. I realized something important that I may have known but not really focused my energy on. It's very odd to think I will not go back to Wyckoff once nana and grandpa leave. I have almost all of my memories there of St. Elizabeth's Catholic School and Ramapo High School, and I am sure I will take you there, but once they are gone it is no longer home. Home means so many things. It means 147 East Seventh Ave in Trappe, but it also means Wyckoff. I think home actually really means with your family. I remember getting lost on the beach once with my family friend Owen Sullivan and when asked where home was I would have to say wherever my parents were staying. I think home is wherever we are a family together at that time and I will just mourne the sentimental value of Wyckoff and 147 when we sell it and move into something bigger and newer for Mom.
I just used spell check..spell what?
These days every time we go down we try to get a COUSINS NIGHT out and finally this year I bought a Fire Dept. shirt from Ocean City. They run 5,000 calls and I run 300. Big firehouse differences. They are almost 100% volunteer still after all those calls and that is very rare. I tell you this all the time, that volunteerism is an important part of making the world a better place, in fact it may save us all from total destruction some day, but that community as well as Trappe and Collegeville simply do not function without it. That is something for you to think about. So we went out and had a great time eating and talking and playing skee ball. Shannon and I always have Air Hockey games and most of the time she wins. She is good at that and Miss Pacman. It is her favorite game. Grandpa was writing in the journal as always and is keeping track of all that happens. I save all of his old letters and have them for you to read about his florida days. Every year he spends 3 months there when it gets cold here. Actually that journal I mentioned is the impetus for this Blog to you three. I can go back to any age and find out what I was doing at Ocean City any given year and it is a blast to read it. It is hard to write it sometimes when you are tired and living in the NOW moment when there is so much to do (I can see a huge pile of dishes in the sink right now) but if you don't work hard through those moments, then you cannot reap the benefits later of sitting back and having a great time reading about them. With me, memories fade fast (I think that I have something wrong with me) but a spark can ignite them fully. Kate can remember almost anything from age 4 and up at the drop of a hat. It is truly a gift. Kaylee, you and Corrine got matching rings to remember your trip by (mom and dad won them at skee ball at night) and she has a new loose tooth and so do you. You just lost your first one a couple of months ago. Aidan loved spending time with Megan and Ryan and Kevin and they enjoyed being bigger and caring for you guys too. Pat and Karey are stopping Alliant studios to venture into other better fitting jobs.
Nana and grandpa are trying to sell the 182 Anthony Place house in Wyckoff, NJ 07481 for a second time. The economy is doing very badly so they have to see if they can right now or if they have to wait, but Grandpa has wanted to move to the Jersey shore for a long time now. I realized something important that I may have known but not really focused my energy on. It's very odd to think I will not go back to Wyckoff once nana and grandpa leave. I have almost all of my memories there of St. Elizabeth's Catholic School and Ramapo High School, and I am sure I will take you there, but once they are gone it is no longer home. Home means so many things. It means 147 East Seventh Ave in Trappe, but it also means Wyckoff. I think home actually really means with your family. I remember getting lost on the beach once with my family friend Owen Sullivan and when asked where home was I would have to say wherever my parents were staying. I think home is wherever we are a family together at that time and I will just mourne the sentimental value of Wyckoff and 147 when we sell it and move into something bigger and newer for Mom.
I just used spell check..spell what?
Friday, July 3, 2009
What is this!
I can;t believe how time has flown by. I started this idea to blog as a way to follow my father's very wise advice. Every time I see him he asks if I have written any of this down. He is a big journal person and thank god he aklways has been. WE look back at all the years of memories from Ocean City, MD trips we have taklen as a family and realized just how special those memories are....when they are written down!
I am writing this blog to remember. Remember everything. And I am writing it to you three. Kaylee, Aidan, and Colin. You guys are so much more than I could ever imagine. You know how I feel abotu god in our lives working constantly to bring us closer to his way of living (which COULD NOT be further from where this world is asking you to go with your lives) and I was challenged the other day as to why I would have such childish thoughts abotu something "that just doesn't exist." I am still steaming from that comment and it's thoughtlessness, but I look at you and a thousand other things and feel pinned down by the wieght of just how evident god is all around us and in you. I see him all over our marraige and ever since the day I was born but more specifically now, in you guys. I wonder how it is at all possible for someone to dismiss so MUCH wonder in the world and grand design, and to call it just a clouded hope for something better that doesn't even exist. But life is full of that and you will always be challenged to make our own decisions based on real, serious, and honest dissection of this world. When your heart speaks and you listen, you will for sure know the involvement god wants in your life.
This was not the purpose of writing anything tonite. My mind wandered, and it does alot. I saw this movie where a man thought he might pass away and decided to make a video to his children. He talked about all kinds of things, and it was a good thing he did because he passed the next day in a freak plane crash. They showed that in church (Big Church). Which, by the way, just became your new childrens building becasue the adults built a new one and by the time you read this there may be another one there too. I thought of that man because I truyly do try to live my life in a way that would be acceptable if I dies tomorrow. I am so far from perfect, but I am trying and that is truly the biggest difference you will see in people around the world. Those that are trying and those that aren't. I wanted to update you on everything that hasbeen happening. Wow, since this is the second blog and you are all 6, 4 and 2, I have a long way to go. Lets start recently and work our way back.
Kaylee you just turned 6 and we had a Camp Kaylee party. You had a huge camping theme where we used our pop up camper, and mom-mom did most of the planning for it becasue she loves to do that stuff. I like to be told what the plan is and then build it accordingly. Colin is our most challenging child. He has night terrors and has a really hard time sleeping without us. Mom works 3- 12 hour shifts every week and enjoys snuggling with him at night when he needs us. I don;t liek to have him in our bed becasue it makes him get used to it and habits get VERY hard to break when children are allowed to do what they want, when they want. There is no sleep around this house. There hasn't been good sleep since you were born, but that is what comes with children, and you bless us with so many more wonderful things that it becomes normal and really not a big deal. One thing I loook at all the time is a quote that says, "what your upset about...will it matter in five or twenty five years?-if that answer is no, stop worrying." Sleep wont matter, especially when we are here alone worried about where you all are that night when you are gone and older. Aidan is a showman. hwe loves to entertain by telling jokes. Music and dance usually accompany the lineup. We just got a piano and I hope to take lessons with Kaylee. Summer 2009 is very busy. I do Fire Dept. training as an asst. engineer mondays, kate works three mixed days, we have bible study thursdays, where we also go out and serve the community in a number of ways, then we go away alot for trips to spend time with each other or friends and family. We feel like we are never home together as a family. Aidan had his first year of preschool two days a week, Colin and I had one on one time and I loved it! Kaylee had her first year of 1/2 day kindergarten with mrs. Mckenna and loved it! Kaylee just lost a tooth (1st one) about a month and a half ago. Kaylee loved her first year of cirl scouts (Daisy). Kaylee has just learned to read a couple of months before school ended and it is AWESOME! Julia turned one and Jill had a year without her mom. I think about her all the time. That is so hard, but she is dealing with it well. And of coursem we celebrated Mike and Mo having Mae. More to come!
I am writing this blog to remember. Remember everything. And I am writing it to you three. Kaylee, Aidan, and Colin. You guys are so much more than I could ever imagine. You know how I feel abotu god in our lives working constantly to bring us closer to his way of living (which COULD NOT be further from where this world is asking you to go with your lives) and I was challenged the other day as to why I would have such childish thoughts abotu something "that just doesn't exist." I am still steaming from that comment and it's thoughtlessness, but I look at you and a thousand other things and feel pinned down by the wieght of just how evident god is all around us and in you. I see him all over our marraige and ever since the day I was born but more specifically now, in you guys. I wonder how it is at all possible for someone to dismiss so MUCH wonder in the world and grand design, and to call it just a clouded hope for something better that doesn't even exist. But life is full of that and you will always be challenged to make our own decisions based on real, serious, and honest dissection of this world. When your heart speaks and you listen, you will for sure know the involvement god wants in your life.
This was not the purpose of writing anything tonite. My mind wandered, and it does alot. I saw this movie where a man thought he might pass away and decided to make a video to his children. He talked about all kinds of things, and it was a good thing he did because he passed the next day in a freak plane crash. They showed that in church (Big Church). Which, by the way, just became your new childrens building becasue the adults built a new one and by the time you read this there may be another one there too. I thought of that man because I truyly do try to live my life in a way that would be acceptable if I dies tomorrow. I am so far from perfect, but I am trying and that is truly the biggest difference you will see in people around the world. Those that are trying and those that aren't. I wanted to update you on everything that hasbeen happening. Wow, since this is the second blog and you are all 6, 4 and 2, I have a long way to go. Lets start recently and work our way back.
Kaylee you just turned 6 and we had a Camp Kaylee party. You had a huge camping theme where we used our pop up camper, and mom-mom did most of the planning for it becasue she loves to do that stuff. I like to be told what the plan is and then build it accordingly. Colin is our most challenging child. He has night terrors and has a really hard time sleeping without us. Mom works 3- 12 hour shifts every week and enjoys snuggling with him at night when he needs us. I don;t liek to have him in our bed becasue it makes him get used to it and habits get VERY hard to break when children are allowed to do what they want, when they want. There is no sleep around this house. There hasn't been good sleep since you were born, but that is what comes with children, and you bless us with so many more wonderful things that it becomes normal and really not a big deal. One thing I loook at all the time is a quote that says, "what your upset about...will it matter in five or twenty five years?-if that answer is no, stop worrying." Sleep wont matter, especially when we are here alone worried about where you all are that night when you are gone and older. Aidan is a showman. hwe loves to entertain by telling jokes. Music and dance usually accompany the lineup. We just got a piano and I hope to take lessons with Kaylee. Summer 2009 is very busy. I do Fire Dept. training as an asst. engineer mondays, kate works three mixed days, we have bible study thursdays, where we also go out and serve the community in a number of ways, then we go away alot for trips to spend time with each other or friends and family. We feel like we are never home together as a family. Aidan had his first year of preschool two days a week, Colin and I had one on one time and I loved it! Kaylee had her first year of 1/2 day kindergarten with mrs. Mckenna and loved it! Kaylee just lost a tooth (1st one) about a month and a half ago. Kaylee loved her first year of cirl scouts (Daisy). Kaylee has just learned to read a couple of months before school ended and it is AWESOME! Julia turned one and Jill had a year without her mom. I think about her all the time. That is so hard, but she is dealing with it well. And of coursem we celebrated Mike and Mo having Mae. More to come!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
First Time
Hello all,
what is that three people? I am just trying this out for the first time and I like it. I have always thought I could be good with computers. Not phenomenal, but just good. So exciting news. My sister and brother in law Maureen and Mike had their first baby this past weekend. I am so excited for them and I think about all the things they will go through. I think about all the learning that goes on and why we can't speed that up. I learned so much, but I always found that people hadn't told me about this or that, and I wonder why. I guess it doesn't come to mind or people don't want to be pushy with their views. I say go for it and simply preempt your advice with "hey this is what worked for me." I gotta go call them.
Thanks for reading.
what is that three people? I am just trying this out for the first time and I like it. I have always thought I could be good with computers. Not phenomenal, but just good. So exciting news. My sister and brother in law Maureen and Mike had their first baby this past weekend. I am so excited for them and I think about all the things they will go through. I think about all the learning that goes on and why we can't speed that up. I learned so much, but I always found that people hadn't told me about this or that, and I wonder why. I guess it doesn't come to mind or people don't want to be pushy with their views. I say go for it and simply preempt your advice with "hey this is what worked for me." I gotta go call them.
Thanks for reading.
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