TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING ...

On Liberty Island, across from the new Freedom Tower, still under construction on the far left, built on the Twin Towers WTC site.

We're back from an amazing 20th anniversary trip to NYC, thanks to hours of painstaking planning by Tom and even more thanks to the kindness of my parents, who graciously stepped back in time about 35 years to relive when THEY had 5 active kids at home.  (My dad even dressed up as a cow for Chick Fil A's Cow Appreciation Day, which was certainly above and beyond the call of duty, free meal or no!  Sorry, Siblings, no pics of THAT!)

I promise not to bore you with a travel log here - but can I just say that Wicked was incredible as expected, Spider Man - Turn Off the Dark was cooool, no matter what the critics say, and Tony-winner Jay Corden was so funny in One Man, Two Guvnors that we hurt from laughing???  There - that's it.  You can call us about all the other great food fun stuff.

To all of you who have said you've been thinking about some kind of trip together, to quote my old friend Hamlet, we say, "Get thee on a vacation -- GO!"  Here are my three quick takes about why we're glad we went, and I'm sure Tom will post his thoughts later too.

~Our Kids Needed It~
And I don't mean that they needed some special time with their grandparents, though that was a precious, priceless benefit.  Elizabeth Ann (2) still talks about "rock-rocking with Gramma" at bedtime, memories I hope remain with her for a long time.  As we were preparing for the trip, it dawned on us how important it was for the kids to see us get excited about our anniversary ... that we still love each other after all these years, that we still have fun together, that twenty years of marriage is not only do-able but worth celebrating!  You know, we adults tell teens all the time that they should wait for marriage ... save themselves, all that good stuff, but we should ask ourselves every once in awhile, Does our marriage look like it's something worth waiting for?  Does the vocation even look appealing to our teens??  So it was more than just a fun trip for Tom and me; it was remote marriage preparation (as JP II called it) for our kids!  (Expensive preparation, I might add, but worth it.)

~We Needed It~
 It was great to be kids together again, roaming the city hand in hand, without a care in the world except where we would eat dinner and getting to our Broadway play on time.  We felt like we were college sweethearts once more, and it confirmed for us that yes, we ARE still great friends and still love each other's company.  It's easy to lose the joy and forget to have fun in the midst of the workaday world and life with five; it's easy to forget what drew you together in the first place.  It reminds me of what JPII once wrote about vacationing:

"Man, freed from the pressing tasks of daily  life, has the opportunity to rediscover his own contemplative dimension recognizing God's imprints in nature and especially in other human beings. This is an experience that opens him to a renewed attention to people who live near  him, beginning with his family." (Angelus message, July 21, 1996)

~The World Needed It~
Not kidding, and not talking about dollars we personally put toward resuscitating the economy!  We ended up talking a lot to people around us, on the plane, in the restaurants ... in the old-timer, local places we ate (Katz's Deli, Gramaldi's Pizza - to die for - thank you, Tom, for all your research!) we were often squeezed in with other folks, family-style)  So of course we told everyone that we were celebrating our 20th, and each time we were met with an amazed "Wow!" followed quickly by a sincere "Congratulations!" and "That's so wonderful!"  We were there in New York in the midst of the TomKat break-up, and the city was abuzz with the news that Katie Holmes had just bought an apartment in Manhattan, not too far from where we were staying.  It's paradoxical:  no matter how mixed-up and broken the world is about marriage, there is something deep within people that admires faithfulness and longevity ... it's inscribed within us that the permanence of marriage is a good thing.  So gosh darn it, the world needs to see more of us couples in love, who have endured and made it through, still together though we may not look as dashing as we once did at 18 and 19.  Like our kids, the world needs to see that marriage for the long haul is certainly do-able.  So more than just having fun, we were witnessing and evangelizing about the Sacrament of Matrimony! Take that, Visa bill!

We are already talking about our 25th anniversary, and we plan on going to the same quaint hotel, located in the midst of everything.    Y'all come - Summer of 2017.  (Don't panic, Mom and Dad, by then Christopher will be in college - gulp - and he can watch the rest of the kids himself!)

Hotel 414 - in Manhattan, on Restaurant Row,  within walking distance to Times Square and the theaters ....

Upcoming Posts:  Tom's review of The Dark Knight Rises, more teacher-y things to download, and Saxon vs. Teaching Textbooks ... be sure to "Join the Party" on the right; just enter your email to be sent new posts automatically.

IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE ...

A few summers back, my older boys discovered the joys of negative humor.  You gotta be quick, you gotta be clever, and it's just so fun to let those zingers fly.  Trouble is, no matter how much you laugh and know it's a joke, it's not so fun to be on the receiving end.  In fact, if left unchecked, negative humor can be devastating to family relationships.  Tom will freely admit that he is a Master of Sarcasm, and when we first got married, he had to really work hard at being positive.  To this day he still has a hard time accepting compliments, though he has learned to give them out freely.   (To his friends:  if you really want to see your old buddy squirm, start lavishing him with praise!)

So when we saw the boys get going, we knew we had to intervene.  And that's how our Family Virtue of the Month was born.  It was August, I remember, right as another school year was starting.  We declared that all month long, the whole family was going to work on POSITIVE SPEECH.  We were going to give out sincere praise, when deserved.  We were going to remember to say "I love you."  (At least every now and then, when no one else could hear us!) We were not going to complain.  And most of all, we were not going to tear each other down, no matter how seemingly innocuous the teasing was.

We ALL needed reminders of our goal, so I printed out a mini poster with the virtue on it, along with a Bible verse or two.  I framed it and put it right above our kitchen table, so that we'd see it all the time.  And when the kids lapsed, we could gently ask, "Is that positive speech?"

A few other things converged with this project:  with the new school year starting, I wanted to do more with the traditional Catholic monthly dedications ... we all know that May is dedicated to the Blessed Mother, and that October is the month of the Holy Rosary, but how about the rest of them?   So I added that.  And then one of our goals that year was to learn more Bible verses together as a family, so we added that too.  (Saint Jerome reminds us that "Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ," right?)  Finally, on the bottom of the poster, I listed some of the big feast days that I wanted us to remember and celebrate:

We made some strides in curbing our (negative) enthusiasm, so I did another one for September, then October, and then all the rest.  I should add, however, in the interest of full disclosure, that when we reached the end of that first August, one of my sons breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Thank God - now we can all go back to normal."

Well, it's a little dusty, but that picture is still hanging in the kitchen.  Sometimes we forget all about the virtue we're supposed to be mastering.  True confessions: until last week the month read "February," but hey - it was a busy spring!  And we still re-use the original 12 virtues these many years later, because can you really master Forgiveness or Perseverance???  But they do give us something to shoot for, so we'll be continuing with them next school year, once again.  And I'll use them in my junior high school classroom too.

I just printed out new copies, and I'm happy to share them with all of you:  Virtues of the Month

And lest you think we're some kind of super-family with this virtue thing, here is the scene immediately UNDER the picture:

Sigh.  I may have to revise my list to include one on CLEANLINESS.

But in the meantime, here's my unsolicited advice:

1. Print out on glossy photo paper.  Shiny = pretty.  C'mon - use a little of that color ink for once.  (You may have to sign up for MediaFire, but it just takes a second, and it will give you access to my other "teacher-y stuff" like the Prayer Before a Test.  Everything is free.  Free = fun.)
2. Buy a DOCUMENT frame.  It needs to be 8.5x11, not the traditional 8x10.  You can buy one super cheap at Wal Mart, and then paint the frame to make it cute - or distress it with sandpaper, which is what I did.
3. Hang it somewhere prominent so you'll see it frequently.  We McDonalds all love to eat, so the kitchen table works well for us.  Stuff all 12 pages in the frame at once, and just rearrange each month.  Otherwise you will lose them, your coffee will spill all over your desk and ruin them, or your 2 year old will redecorate them.
4. For my teacher friends reading, as always you can enlarge to 11x17 for your classroom and go from there.
5. Don't be like me and say, "That's cool - I'll print them out in August when school starts."  You will FORGET!  Do it now.  You'll feel so organized and virtuous.

P.S.  The only thing missing on the poster are the prayers I picked out to work on each month, but you can add what works in your house.  I wanted to be sure that even my little guys were learning our traditional Catholic prayers - they're so beautiful - so each month we also say a prayer each day as a part of our opening school prayers:  November is always "Eternal rest grant unto them;" September is the St. Michael Prayer; May is the Memorare, etc.

Switching over to July ... dedicated to the Precious Blood of Jesus."What can wash away my sins?  Nothing but the blood of Jesus ..."