Happy Birthday Julia

 She's 18!  Happy Birthday to my favorite daughter! ❤️

She and I went prom dress shopping for her birthday. We found a dress that we later returned.  We also had sushi per her request.

We had cake and presents at home later that evening.

Love you Julia!

State Wrestling

Philip and five made it to State!  We stayed downtown for the first time and we were glad we did because it snowed and the roads were a little iffy.

Joe, Jackson, Sebastian (in the back), Philip and Landon.

Plus Coaches Welsh, Thompson and Chvatal

On the board!

Philip didn't win either of his matches but he wrestled hard and didn't let the other guys get easy wins. He had a great experience and hopefully will use it to be ready again next year!

Fan club- there were more...Steve and Raleen came too, plus some Codrs.

Landon was the only one who ended up medaling.  He made it to the finals and got second so it was fun to watch!

Great season boys!

Sidenote:  Philip may or may not have gotten the unofficial award for most weight gained over the weekend after getting knocked out...somehow he managed to edge out Joe by just a little bit.

Philip's Wresting Season

For various reasons I've gone with a few collages of the whole season for Philip.  They started late in November (after the football championship) and wrestle through February.  Philip had a good year and earned some medals towards the end of the season.  He went 37-20 (we think).  Before Christmas he mostly wrestled at 132 but got down to 126 for the new year.

Below is Philip's favorite way to pin.  The rest of us hate it because both kids are on their back and if something goes wrong the other kid can reverse and get a pin more easily than with other pinning moves.  One of my favorite quotes of the season was when Jack Dart tried this move and on one side of me Philip yelled "Go for it Jack!!" While on the other side Jack's dad (who was a wrestler and groans every time Philip does the move) yelled "Don't do it Jack!!"

Thomas helped coach this year, which he enjoyed.  He worked mostly with the heavy weights and encouraging the kids who have to work really hard to improve their skills.  Because he knows exactly what that's like and they tend to think being a good wrestler was easy for him.

Here's the boys all lined up for parents night at our home dual.

Landon got his 150th win in January.  That's really impressive.  Most really good wrestlers get to 100 wins towards the end of their senior year.

Here's Philip medaling at our home meet.  Looks like he got 2nd.

The weekend after I got home from Mexico was districts.  Every year I dread districts because my strongest district memories come from Sam's senior year when the team had a really rough day.  But now I remember that was just a weird year and usually districts are intense but not so bad. Philip wrestled well and earned third place in his weight bracket which sent him to State!  

Great wrestling Philip, we're proud of your hard work!

Hope of the Poor Final Day

Craig said we were leaving earlier than any other group he'd ever had.  We needed to be at the airport by 7 am or something like that.  We enjoyed the extra 15 minutes of sleep we had negotiated the night before, had Mass, took some pictures, made sure our new life-size images of Our Lady of Guadalupe were well taken care of (the rolls you see some of us carrying) and headed out.

I'd estimate it's a 30 minute van ride and a 10 minute walk to get to the right part of the airport.

Normally a big group of Hope of the Poor families come to the airport to see the pilgrims off.  We got a handful of men who braved the early hour.  :)

And then we had to say goodbye and get checked in for our flights.  (One of the first things I did back on day 1 when we got to the convent was check my return flight numbers.  No mix ups this time!)

This was the picture of the morning I sent to my family.

One funny story from the airports.  I carried the image of Our Lady that Fr. Fleck bought for St. Joseph's through security in Mexico City.  They picked up the well-taped roll and asked whose it was.  I said it was mine and that it was Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Great, they sent it through the x-ray no problem!  In Denver when we went through customs Nikki had the image...and she had to have a special x-ray scan/search.  I guess Denver agents don't just accept the "it's Our Lady of Guadalupe" explanation like the Mexico City agents do!

It was probably a once in a lifetime trip for me but I've relived it through pictures and telling the story so many times already.  Hope of the Poor will be in my prayers and close to my heart for a very long time...most likely forever.

Hope of the Poor Day 5

We started our last full day in Mexico with our morning walk to the Basilica.  Then we had Mass and prayer teams at the convent before going back over to the basilica for a bit.  It was more crowded since it wasn't super early but still not bad. We saw as much as we could but there's so much!

There's a JPII museum but we didn't make it inside.

More of the grounds were open than in the morning.  This is part of the big garden, it's the Aztec people coming to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I think this is the Baptistry- maybe.  One of the many things I didn't know about Our Lady of Guadalupe is that there is a miraculous stream as part of the story.  There's a well in here but you can't touch the water.  My book mentioned more than one time that the water is "brackish".

This is the well.

This is where Juan Diego lived (little hut to the right I think) and the Church where the tilma was first displayed. 

This is the inside part where Juan Diego lived.

Back over by the Basilica there's tons of flowers and candles.  Every night the custodial staff clears out all the candles...and every day the people fill it back up again!

Here we are up on Tepeyac Hill again.  Me, Nikki Konz, Stephanie Werner and Robyn Furasek.

Our next stop was street tacos for lunch.  It was quite literally in the street.

Then we went on to women's shelter.  No pictures allowed there.  It is a government run complex for women who can't take care of themselves.  I'm fuzzy on how exactly you end up there.  Many of the women there have intellectual disabilities but some didn't.  I'm also fuzzy on if it's possible to leave there without someone to come get you out and commit to taking care of you.  I had a long (one sided) conversation with one lady.  She told me about her mother and her aunt and something about teachers.  I could understand a few words and phrases and could tell it was a happy story by her tone, body language and the fact she said "contento" and "feliz" a lot- which are two ways to say happy.  Robyn came over for a bit and confirmed I had the very basic gist of it.  Then suddenly the story was over and the lady hugged me, said "Besos, besos!" (Kisses, kisses) and I could tell I was supposed to move on.  :)

There were some ladies coloring and making bracelets so I went over and helped with that.  My favorite moment was when Nikki and I were reading the crayons to learn the Spanish words for neon colors.  I looked up and there was a lady just laughing at us.  I'm sure two middle aged ladies exclaiming over color names like preschoolers was super funny!

We had a little more time at the Basilic (and shopping for souvenirs) after we left the women's shelter and then we headed back for our last night in the convent.

Father blessed all the things we had bought, plus the Conseptionist Sisters have a bunch of relics so we touched our stuff to those too.

We negotiated Mass time the next morning back from 5:30 am to 5:45 and headed to bed.

Hope of the Poor Day 4

This was a slower day by pilgrimage standards.  Only two stops!  We went to the basilica in the morning as usual but then we stayed around the convent for a presentation about the tilma before going to 11 Mass at the basilica. 

The priests got to concelebrate.  There are Masses every day on the hour and it runs like clockwork...but the main celebrant was late.  There is a rule all the Masses there have to be in Spanish so Fr. Nemec volunteered that he is fluent but the main celebrant showed up just in time....but Fr. Nemec did get to read the Gospel!  Fr. Morin said he was going to brag that he knows a guy who read the gospel at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe...just his type of joke!

I assume this is the sacristy.

This is the back of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she turns around every night to keep her safe.  The priests were pretty excited about the whole thing.  I'm going to guess every priest has at least a mental list of all the cool places he's celebrated Mass and this would definitely make the list!

In order to keep the Masses on schedule they keep going with Mass before everyone is done receiving Communion.  Also Mexicans do not traditionally receive at every Mass so really the majority of the congregation doesn't receive.  We could hear the man distributing Communion in our area saying to his helper he was going to run out of hosts "because there were so many Americans" (and we traditionally receive every Mass assuming we are not in the state of mortal sin.)

After Mass we went to spend time with the families Hope of the Poor has rescued from the streets.  Every Sunday all the rescued families and Hope of the Poor staff plus any pilgrims who are visiting get together at the park for fellowship.  We played with the kids, played party games, listened to more testimonies, talked with the adults, had an earthquake warning and celebrated three birthdays!

This girlie, Jocelyn,  introduced me to her whole family and all her friends. I quickly caught on to how to do it so I introduced my friends too!  "Me presento mi amigas, Robyn, Nikki y Stephanie!"

I did not do the potato sack rack but Fr. Fleck did!

I did play the balloon popping game but Fr. Morin is cutthroat!  He popped mine two second after they said go and before I'd even had a chance to move!

The testimonies we heard were sad and hopeful.  So many of the adults came from poor, broken homes, ended up on the streets and then got hooked on drugs.  Hope of the Poor puts them through rehab, takes care of their kids while they are there, teaches them about nutrition and hygiene, has a full time psychologist on staff that they meet with once a week and is always just a phone call away and has someone with them 24/7 for a set amount of time after they are provided with an apartment and basic necessities.  Plus they do catechesis.  Obviously this is all voluntary but you have to be serious about changing your life.  Hope of the Poor is serious about accountability if they're going to help you.

I don't know this cherub's name but her mama was trying to juggle the sleeping baby and get her toddler a plate of food so I took the baby. :)

At one point all these weird alarms started going off.  They were earthquake sirens!  But we didn't feel anything, it was miles and miles away on the coast.  We did have to go to the "punto de reunion" which is where it's safe to stand and I assume you have a plan meet up at a certain one if you get separated from your people.

Back to partying!  We had two rescued street kids' birthdays and Maya, one of our pilgrims was about a week away from her 21st birthday.  (Fun fact, Lynn babysat for Maya's family...but maybe before Maya was born.)

Here's everyone here that Sunday.

After the party in the park we went for street tacos!  I had a huge, delicious strawberry lemonade.  I'm sure they made it from fresh strawberries and lemons.  So refreshing.

Last we headed back to the convent.  We made these Valentines before bed.  Robyn had brought them to make at the orphanage but forgot to bring them in.  So we had fun making them and left them for Craig to distribute.

Another first for Craig.  He had to leave before our trip was over.  But he had an amazing reason.  He was going to Rome and would be able to briefly meet Pope Leo after his weekly Wednesday audience!  Craig had a letter and a book about Hope of the Poor to present to the Pope.  Pope Leo has announced he is going to Mexico in 2026 (...or maybe 2027 I can't remember now) and Craig is hoping he will stop by the orphanage.

Day 4 complete!