I'm a canna!

I am a Canna What Flower Are You?

Confirmation Day, Part II

Thursday was Morgan's Confirmation, the reason that I'd gone out to Jersey. Woke up at a decent time and then Roy, Aunt Nan and I ended up going shopping for a bit around town. I introduced Roy and Aunt Nan to the joy that is Coldstone Creamery, neither of them had ever eaten there before. We headed back home and then headed out to the mall to get Morgan a new outfit to wear, since she had one dress outfit and had worn it to all her friends Bar and Bat Mitzvah's. So we found her a cute new black skirt and top, which is easy when you're a lil size 5.

Rush back to the house.

Change into dress clothes.

Run over to the church and sit through the pre-Confirmation instructions.

Now, I've been through my fair share of Confirmations, in fact we'd had 5 in church the week before. But this was the first time that I'd been to a special mass just for Confirmation. And the first time that I'd seen 104 kids Confirmed at once. That's right ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR. At my church, it's done weekly by a priest. In New Jersey, it was a special service presided over by the Archbishop of Kingston Jamaica, the previous Bishop of the diocese.

And just how long does a Confirmation service for 104 kids take?

Two hours.

Because they had to write letters to the Bishop requesting Confirmation, and the Bishop decided to read 5 of them in their entirety. Luckily, instead of the literal laying on of the hands to invoke the Holy Spirit, they did it all at once in a more figurative since, or we would have been there forever. But it was still special for everyone getting Confirmed because the Bishop spoke to each person individually before sealing them with the Oil of Chrism. Euleasia was in the choir and while Morgan and I were walking for Confirmation, she was singing a solo, so it made it seem even more special.

When we got home, the kids got their gifts, Morgan her Confirmation gifts and Nick his First Communion gifts. Then Roy and I were starving, so we took off in search of food, but at 11 at night, the only thing open was McDonald's, so Big Macs it was and then back home to get some sleep for the trip to New York the next morning.

The Trip of Firsts, Part I

This is just simply too long to post all at once, which is probably why I've been putting it off, but here's the first part about my trip out to New Jersey for Morgan's Confirmation.

This trip out to New Jersey has been a trip full of firsts. It started with my first flight, a short 16 minute flight from Flint to Detroit. It was cool, except that since the trip was so short, we didn't get very high up, so it was just a wee bit bumpy and I felt a little nauseated. But Aunt Nan and I made it to Detroit vomit free and got some pizza at the airport. And the miraculous part is that Aunt Nan didn't pick all the cheese off of her pizza and go "It's too cheesy!" She actually ate the whole slice, complaint free. We had just enough time to eat and board our flight to Philadelphia, it was all going so smoothly. Too smoothly, for when we taxied up to the runway, we found out that we were being delayed by Philadelphia air traffic control and therefore got to sit on the runway for about 25 minutes. Fun fun.

Flying is amazing. I had a window seat on both flights, and while you're traveling over 500mph, when you look out the window, it so doesn't seem like you're moving that fast. There were some awesome photo opportunities that I took full advantage of.



Now, the plan was for Aunt Nan and I to land and then for Roy to land just over an hour after we did, and with claiming baggage and stuff, it would have worked out perfectly, but as is the way with air travel, it didn't work out that way. Since we were delayed, so was Roy. His plane didn't land until 8pm. So we had a couple of hours to kill and Aunt Nan and I just say and watched the planes take off and land.

We finally made it to the house around 9:30, after stopping at Subway to get some food. Watching Aunt Nan order her sub was almost painful. I should have tipped the girl or something for putting up with her order. Nick was waiting at the door for us and was very excited to see his Nana again. He hadn't seen me in a couple of years, so he didn't remember me right away, and had a bit of trouble with my name, so I stared out the weekend as Mamaw. It took a bit of persuading to get him into bed and then we got to visit with Morgan and see some of the projects that she had done at school, including a very cool pair of Looney Tunes fleece pajama pants. We ended day one visiting with Euleasia and Roy before everyone crashed.