Life With Boys

I never ever ever thought I would ever ever ever have to utter the phrase,

"If I ever see you jumping off of a chair with a cello again..."

I'll show YOU skateboarding

We have a Tony Hawk wannabe at de Sales.  I'm not going to name any names, but let's just say he's the sacristan for the largest church dedicated solely to the traditional mass in the entire galaxy.  His friends call him Trip A.

Here he is getting his sea legs:

I took off the training wheels! Yay!

Here he is shredding:

The stone house in the rear of this photo is presently for sale
 for a whopping $10,000 if anyone is interested.

But I thought you might want to see what some real life backyard half-pipe action looks like circa 1988.  I may or may not be married to this person now.

She fell in love with me for my Vans.

And here is that same person reading a book (surprise!) while his brother bursts a spleen or something:

I call this trick "falling."

She's baaaaack!

I know some of my readers are familiar with my friend, Lady Modesty.  She had stopped blogging for a bit, but she is now in full force and ready to B-L-O-G!!!!

You should pop on over for a quick visit.  And, if you are sitting at home on a Friday night as I am, you obviously have nothing better to do.  Go visit her!

Or, you can drink some Sam Adams Octoberfest. He's delicious.

We milked the beer cow today. Yum.

Life with Boys

Overheard as the boys were cleaning their room,

"Oh look!  I found my lucky Lego!"

Well, THIS is a downer.

Oh my. What caused this?

On June 12th I happened to find this little tidbit buried in the St. Louis Post Dispatch in their online site: Stltoday. (I do not get the print edition of this paper for about 20 reasons). The strange part is that it wasn't a link from somewhere else and it wasn't part of another story.  It was just sitting there.  Being sad.  Waiting to be read.

Diocesan Priests*
                     1985    2011
St. Louis       568       365
Belleville      158       119
U.S.          35,052  27,284

Parishes
                    1985    2011
St. Louis      245       188
Belleville     130       119
U.S.           19,244  18,201

Nonpriests appointed by bishops to run parishes in the U.S.
1975  1985  1995  2000  2005  2010
     0      93    314    447    553    469

Source: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
*Includes retired and inactive priests in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Diocese of Belleville, Ill.; does not include religious order priests. *

Welcome Canon Avis!

(I MISS CANON HUBERFELD! Now, let's continue as I am so happy to see Canon Avis!)

Out with the old, in with the kind of new!

Yup, our dear Canon Avis is returning to us as our vicar...again.

Welcome back, Canon! 

I'll just welcome myself back, thanks.

And now I'll celebrate my return tout seul aussi.

Have I mentioned I'm the "go-to" person when Cardinal Burke is in town?

See? Cardinal Burke (then Archbishop) and moi.

And here I am with the rector.  Oops, wrong era.



Beautiful.



I'm glad you're back, Canon Avis!

Goodbye, Canon Huberfeld

On Sunday we said farewell to our dear vicar, Canon Huberfeld.  He has been reassigned to the Institute's apostolate in Wausau, Wisconsin where they are presently mourning the loss of their dear Canon Fragelli!  Lots of pulling of hair and gnashing of teeth going on in the midwest!

But, as we know, the Salesian spirit runs deep through the heart of the Institute of Christ the King.  The faithful in Wisconsin will come to love Canon Huberfeld and those here in St. Louis who don't know Canon Avis will come to love him as well.  I already know him so I get to skip that learning curve!



"I think there is an English saying which talks about not letting the door hit
you on your way out. Or something like that."



I will miss you, Canon.

Memories...

Who can believe it was a year ago that Abbe Alex

fixed our leaning tower at St. Francis de Sales?

Click here to watch the video!!!!!!