God-daughter #5

We're on God-daughter #5 now. We went and chrismated Matthew's aunt Jenny (Fr Stephen's younger sister) on Tuesdays, who is mentally retarded. Jenny is 47 and has spent most of her life in a state hospital because of her severe mental retardation. Fr. Stephen recently became Jenny's guardian and decided that it would be a good idea to chrismate her into the Orthodox church so, along with her salvation, we can give her an Orthodox funeral when the time comes. Matthew and I went along to be her sponsors and we brought Grandma Joyce with us too (Jenny's and Fr. Stephen's mom). It was about the shortest chrismation you will ever see. Jenny is blind and does not like new people around nor does she like to be touched, so we had to do it fairly quickly. It was a nice little service though and we are happy to have another God-daughter to pray for. Luke has put her at the top of his prayer list: "Pray Aunt Jenny." That's how he prays for her. We also gave Jenny the patron saint of Helen, since Gramma Joyce's first name is Helen--Joyce is her middle name.

Wednesday was supposed to be a very full busy day, but all our plans fell through so we ended up doing nothing. I did however make a really good cream cheese pound cake, and topped it with fresh strawberries. The strawberries were fresh picked the day before we bought them. We have been buying fresh strawberries, picked the day we buy them. We ended up staying home, sitting on the patio for most of the day, and finally rented and watched "Night at the Museum" (the first one). Not too shabby of a movie, and it's only PG, so it's definitely a good family flick.

That brings us to Thursday. We had a quiet morning at home, then went to Fr. Polycarp and Lisa Whitcomb's house for lunch. It was a nice visit with them, and Luke really liked playing with their blocks and toys. We then made it home in time to see Grammarge, Grampa Roy, and his Matthew's great aunt Billie. Billie and Grampa Roy are driving to Livingston, Montana tomorrow, so it was a good time to say Aloha. About an hour after the grandparents left, we drove out to in-N-Out burger to meet Jonathan and Fr. Stephen after Jonathan's shift. Matthew, Fr. Stephen, and Jonathan ate dinner at Chipotle (HUUUGE burritos), but I just ate Animal Fries from INOB in the car while Luke slept and Hannah dined. From there we went to Scandia Fun Center, which has mini-golf, race cars, bumper boats, a batting cage, and an arcade. We settled on 36 holes of mini golf. It was pretty fun. Luke had a blast using a putter that was a bit too long. He mostly enjoyed picking up our balls before we were done putting, then throwing them in the hole or the nearest windmill or house or whatever. We were there for a "couple-two-tree" hours (had to throw a NEPA phrase in there).

Tomorrow the forecast calls for rain all day, so we'll see if our plans to go to the Zoo and Fairy Tale Town pan out.

Again, we are very happy to have another Goddaughter. May God grant Helen Jennifer Rose Howell many years!

-Stasia