God alone suffices

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing dismay you.
All thing are passing.
God never changes.
Patience attains all that it strives for.
He who has God finds he lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.

— St. Teresa of Avila

Boating on Lake Minnetonka

This weekend we were treated to a boating outing on Lake Minnetonka. It was perfect weather and we practically had the lake to ourselves! We figured people must have been at the Great MN Get-Together or getting ready to go back to school. But we had a wonderful time cruising the lake, checking out the million dollar homes and eating at Lord Fletchers. It is fascinating to see the kids at different stages: this time around, Faustina loved the boat ride and Jude was not so much a fan. Last summer the roles were switched. Faustina's cousins got her into it even more as they were giddy with excitement the faster the boat went. It would be fun in the future to get some skies out! In this first picture, Mike is showing the kids how fish like to eat wads of spit.....uuugghh!

Back to the mountains

As fall time seems upon us and school is starting up, it is fun to look back on our trip pictures. I am fully confident there will be a season in our lives when Faustina and Jude will embrace hiking (as I speak he is roaring like a lion and watching David & Goliath, certainly a boy's boy!), but now is not that time for going on mile and mile long hikes like the good ol' days. We walked maybe half a mile around Jenny Lake in the Tetons and then sat down to enjoying throw rocks and wade in the water - quite a bit more relaxing than a hike.



Here we are at Glacier National Park. It is GORGEOUS.




Anyone who has been to Glacier is familiar with the Going-to-the-sun road. It is the main road that goes right over the mountains. At first Mike and I were wondering what kind of name that was, but we soon figured it out and it really really does feel like you are 'going to the sun'! You keep driving up up up up up and up. You end up being even with the mountain peaks at about 10,000 feet. It is truly magnificent. With this drive, I didn't need miss the back country hiking as much.





Here we are at Logan's Pass. There is a visitor's center at the peaks of the Going-to-the-Sun-Road. We got out and it was very cold, windy and full of snow! The scenery was breathtaking; the pictures, of course, do not do justice. We saw three goats and a big horned sheep which was really cool.

Faustina was not so much a fan of the wind!




Mike is in the middle of this picture!

Here we are on the other side of the Going-to-the-Sun-Road. It takes a few hours to drive on (!) and afterwards, I was ready to do it again - it was that beautiful. :)

To our boy on his birthday

Your joyful heart, playful smile, and captivating personality are a constant source of delight in our home - we love you Jude!

Hello to our pot bellied little babe!

Today we had an ultrasound for baby #3 and thankfully everything looks great with this little one. Our technician was fabulous (she's been doing it for 35 years). She was excited for us as well as very informative and knowledgeable.

This little person has a tummy as round as a perfect circle (!), we couldn't believe it. Check out its tummy in the first 5 second video (stomach is on the left side of the screen and head on the right) - S/he must be a very good eater! The baby is exactly 1.0 pound right now, the weight of 4 sticks of butter as the technician put it.

I continue to be amazed at how easy this pregnancy has been. No complaints! I hope it is as easy of a baby outside of the womb. ;)

I'm at about 22 weeks. Before we know it, we will have even more activity around here. It is already beginning to feel like fall to me with school starting soon. Although I can certainly use these next few months to prepare, I'm already excited to hold our newborn.

This ultrasound video, albeit short, is super cool. You can see baby #3 smacking its lips!



This next video is a really good profile with the heart beating.

Mini Driving Retreats

One of the reasons I love our road trips so much is that the car times end up being mini little retreats for Mike and I. We bring along our Magnificat magazine which has the daily mass readings along with reflections on them and we can have our prayer times in the car. We make sure we are loaded up with Catholic Lighthouse Media CD's which are 1 hour talks from some of the great apologists of our time such as Mother Teresa, Benedict Groschel, Peter Kreeft, Matthew Kelley, and many more. We have good music, we have the Rosary, and there is quiet time too. In the past when Faustina and Jude were not in the picture we were more able to read aloud to each other articles from First Things and from different books. That is not as much of a reality now. But from all of our trips, I distinctly remember spiritual themes that have come up while listening to different talks or reading different things. This past time we listened to an excellent talk on the Eucharist and its Jewish roots from the Old Testament; last summer my thoughts were forever changed about the meaning of the Last Supper and what Jesus was really saying when he said "Take this cup from me". Really, it is all quite fascinating, inspiring, educational and it all makes sense, which is probably the most amazing aspect to me as I put puzzles of the pieces together as I continue to learn and learn and learn more about my Catholic faith and tradition. I do feel refreshed spiritually after returning from longer driving trips (believe it or not!).

God was certainly with our family and with me on this past outing. There were two days in particular while we were in Glacier that I was having a terrible time. I was not peaceful at all and tears were often right beneath the surface as I struggled. Yes, I was 'having fun' and enjoying everything, but there are always those layers to person which when examined reveal a true portrayal of a person's state of being - and mine was having rough time. So, I prayed - pretty much for 2 days and I did not experience any sense of relief.

The day we left one of our favorite campgrounds, outside the west side of Glacier National Park, we decided to go walk around the town Kalispell, Montana in the historic section. We wandered into a used bookstore and I fell into my normal habit of looking at the kids section of books. Immediately, my eyes fell on this book "More Little Visits With God". I was thrilled because it is a book that I grew up with, loved, and I don't ever remember seeing it anywhere else. My parents had a tattered old soft covered version that was held together with a rubber band and this was a brand new beautiful hard cover copy. It is a classic old school book written in the 50's that has probably 200 one page incredibly simple stories that each teach a lesson about God. (I mean, really, it has a story entitled "Why Sally wanted to be spanked."!In the story, Sally tells her friend that spankings are good because we want to belong to God and in order to belong to God we need to be sorry for our sins. Spankings help us be sorry for our sins. This has been especially helpful with our daughter lately while she is 3 years old!) There are no pictures in this book except a few pencil sketches, there are a few questions at the end of each story to review what happened, and each story ends with a prayer pertaining to the moral of the story. Anyway, I knew we had to get it and was even happier to find that it cost $6.50.

After we had an excellent lunch in town, we hopped in the car and I started reading a few of the stories to Faustina. I read one, then two, then three and she kept asking for more. Well, as it turned out, I know that finding that book and reading the stories was really the Lord blessing me and answering my prayers. They are such simple stories about love, forgiveness, relationships, etc and I was flooded with new convictions from the Lord and overcome with the peace that I had been looking for. It was as if the Lord himself was sitting me on his knee and reading me these stories and I really was the little kid. I was blown away by the simplicity of the truth in the anecdotes. Life, for adults I think, often becomes so complicated and messy that it can be hard to see truth sometimes. I was thankful for that blessing and it was yet another window for me to see how God was caring for and loving me.

Easy, cute baby gifts

It seems everyone I know is having a baby. This past year I have been into sewing and burp clothes are an easy and fun gift to give to new mothers. There are so many fun fabrics, the options are endless. It is simply a pretty fabric with terry cloth on the back. I'm making a stash of these and plan on pulling out a bundle of them as a part of baby shower gifts. Faustina enjoys helping out.

Why Jude threw Dad's glasses

It happened to be the case that our trip coincided with a phase in which Jude's vocabulary was exploding. He is certainly in the parrot stage, so it was fun to say words like 'mountains' or whatever and hear him repeat them back and point at the object. The following clip, however, is Jude having a 'conversation' with Dad in his own babble language. He clearly thinks he is saying something intelligible. As of today, Jude can pretty much say any word and he is starting to break into sentences. I love this stage - can't wait to see what his conversations are like when he is a bit more fluid - I'm sure they will be interesting.

The Black Hills

Our trip started off at 4am Tuesday morning with a long ride out to the Black Hills. It went surprisingly fast and was a great help that my brother Travis actually drove most the way there.

We camped with John and Aaron's family and spent time with Grandpa and Terry going to Crazy Horse which is quite a spectacular monument. It was started in the early 1900's by a Catholic Polish man who was a talented sculptor(obviously!). He and his wife dedicated their life to this project and 7 out of their 10 still oversee the work being done. It is a terrific visitor center and there a ton to learn about the Indian/American relations and how everything unfolded at that time.

Luckily, we missed the hot hot weather by a few days so the camping was very pleasant. We saw lots of bison and various animals, there was a swimming 'hole' at the campsite. But most of all, it was fun to be with family and catch up.

On Friday and Saturday we had an extended Lee family reunion. It was fun to see aunts and uncles and, again, catch up with people I haven't seen in many years. The highlight was celebrating my aunt Joan and uncle Ronnie's 50th wedding anniversary. What an awesome accomplishment! They really are a very fun couple and they are a wonderful witness in how much they love their sons and grandchildren.

Faustina and her cousin loving spending time together and miss each other since Audrey moved to South Bend.

Liam and Leo being crazy together in the tent.



The actual Crazy Horse monument in the background with the finished model in front. They want to be finished in 60 years!


Everyone went into a cave where they did gold digging blasts in the early 1900s.

Campin' Out

Most people think we are crazy to go camping in a tent for a couple weeks with a 2 year old and a 3 year old. But, it actually works out surprisingly well. All kids seem to have a natural love of the outdoors and things that may bother adults don't seem to faze them at all. And I love camping so, personally, I thrive on being outside and the work involved.

We stayed at a motel once in the middle of the trip to wash up and relax. And then we stayed at a Holiday Inn on our long driving day back. This last place we stayed was total disaster; something was very wrong with the room, air ventilation or who knows what. Mike ended up getting sick among other annoying things about the stay which are not worth going into. I think it more sanitary to camp!

We found we had great success with staying at the KOA which are plentiful out west. These places have come up in the world since 10 or 20 years ago! All of them have playgrounds, most have pools, outdoor places to eat at and great scenery from your campsite. One place we stayed at in Montana had biscuit, egg, cereal breakfasts, mini gold, bikes for the kids to use, a petting zoo and it was all free! These places were absolutely perfect for kids.

All American road trip

We're back! Yes, we were on the road for the past 2 weeks and here we are back at our abode. We had an excellent time camping, seeing the sights, and hanging out with the Lee family. We hit up the Black Hills, Tetons National Park and Glacier National Park. The weather was good, a bit hot at times, but nothing to complain about.

Every day proved to be a fun little adventure as we decided where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do, and what/how we wanted to eat. We were free to do whatever we wanted and have fun without much care! Faustina is still only three, but she, actually, to me seems like quite the little grown up and it is fun to see her experiencing all the new sights. At the beginning of the trip, Jude was only saying a few words, now he is starting to break out into sentences (although the following video mainly debuts his favorites words!).

At this point we were in Jamestown, ND. Actually, my uncle lives here, but we didn't want to barge in on them and I thought I remembered he said he would be out of town when we saw him at the reunion. We stopped at the St. James Cathedral in Jamestown which was beautiful and then ate across at the Knights of Columbus Bar which was awesome. This place was the classic hangout that every small town needs.

Here are a few videos of our giddy long trek back on Monday. And yes, we were at a point of silliness when you laugh at anything and everything; we starting taking videos to entertain ourselves. We probably heard Jude say the word 'truck' and 'ball' 4,523,423,457,345 times on the trip. Those are his favorite things right now. In this video, you hear 'another one' 100 times referring to trucks on the road.