Monday, May 16, 2011

Quiet Week at the Cabin

Cabin's probably not quite the word. It's a rather nice house and holds lots of guests quite comfortably. As a matter of fact, we (the kids and I) were only there on our own for about 2 out of the 8 days and spent some lovely time with two of my siblings and their families. Terri recovered nicely and we had one big hike with my brother and his wife and my sister and most of our gaggle of kids to a gorgeous mountain vista. The kids (especially Terri) got a bit homesick as the week got quieter, but especially because they missed John. But mostly they were content to stay put and play with the cousins (plenty of cards, movies, dancing and Wii) and take a break from all of that driving around in the car and hopping from place to place.

Did I mention that this was Holy Week? Terri wasn't well enough to make it to Mass on Palm Sunday, but fortunately she was well enough for the rest of us to get to Mass (me with a cellphone on vibrate in my pocket just in case - fortunately the Church was quite close by) and bring her communion afterwards. We debated about bringing palms all the way home with us and decided that yes, we really wanted to do that (they made it home safe and sound sticking out of a little bag in the big compartment in the driver's door of the van). The church was small and quaint - one of four churches in this very rural mountain parish - which only offers Mass twice a week (one Mass on Sunday and a daily Mass just one day each week). The priest gave quite an excellent sermon on suffering which would have been twice as good if it had been half as long. Funny thing is, when we managed to make it to Good Friday services at the main church of the parish, he gave the exact same sermon. ;)

Here are a few pictorial highlights of our week:

Listening to a Giants' game (while watching the computerized online display) with my brother-in-law...

Giants' Game

Enjoying a little sunshine on the deck (there was quite a bit of snow on the ground when we arrived, but the weather was mostly in the 50s and 60s)...

DSC_6712

Lots of good food! After all, my sister-in-law Patricia is the blogger extraordinaire from Brownies for Dinner! The only time I thought to bring out the camera at dinner time, though was on Holy Thursday, when it was back to just us Van Giggles as we celebrated with our traditional lamb dinner:

Lamb!

...which we ate out on the deck as we couldn't fit around the table inside. Bernie came up with the idea of putting the two coffee tables end to end. Not quite the same as being at home and with Daddy (and just a wee bit chilly), but it was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed what they always declare to be their favorite meal of the year.

Holy Thursday Dinner out on the Deck

Yummy!

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