A Pilgrimage to Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina

On Monday, May 18 twenty four people joined me on a pilgrimage to a place where Mary our Heavenly Mother appeared to 6 young people on June 24, 1981. We gathered at the airport after checking in and went to a conference room where we all met and celebrated Mass together. that was the beginning of our journey. Mary calls us to this place in order to bring us closer to her son, Jesus; to love Him more, and to put Him first in our lives. Everything should be about Jesus.

We landed in Chicago, had a little layover, then headed to Frankfurt, Germany. After flying for about 9 hours we landed and then boarded a Croatia Airline to fly us to Split, Croatia. From there we were met by our wonderful guide, Jelcko and we drove 2 hours to Medjugorje. It was nearly 6 pm when we arrived at our pension and were told to put our luggage in our rooms, wash up and come right down for dinner. We sat in a large dining room with 6 tables, we only filled four of them and we were served our dinner by the host family. Soup was always the first course, it was a delicious broth with bits of cauliflower and small dumplings, then family style a big platter was placed in the center of the table and on the platter were 6 pork cutlets, very tender and yummy, polenta, gnoocchi, green garden salad and always lots of bread. they had wine, water, and a seltzer kind of water always available on the table.

I could take pages to write everything that I saw and that we did. It was really a highlight of my life. I felt so blessed to make this trip to a place where Mary called me to go. I continue to relive moments and hours of that journey even now, 4 days being home. It has renewed my faith, my prayer life, my love and dedication to our Lord and also to his mother, my Heavenly mother. They have pictures of her (well, everywhere) but one that I particularly loved had a saying and it says: "If you knew how much I loved you, you would cry of joy!" That really touched my heart, because really isn't that how all of us mothers feel towards our children?

So I will post a few pictures here to give you a glimpse of my faith journey in this place. We went to daily Mass and received the Eucharist, we prayed the rosary, we prayed the stations of the cross, we had quiet time to reflect, and we spent time in the adoration chapel. We climbed Apparition Hill which is the place where Mary first appeared, on the climb up we prayed the Joyful Mystery of the Rosary. Many from our group climbed Cross Mountain, because of my knees I did not climb that mountain.

Mother's Day Luncheon at Church

There were 170 mom's, grandma's, aunts, daughters, friends at the Mother's Day Luncheon this year. I was asked to decorate a table for 10 and to name the table. The theme was "Mary's Garden" my table was titled "Gentle Lady". I used pink as my main color hoping my peonies would be blooming, but they weren't so I went with cream roses for the flowers and made round circle paper placemats that I stamped with flowers and a flourish around the edge. I made napkin rings with the same flower as the placemat. We were to have a little "token" gift for each person at our table, so I made some cute flower pot baskets and gave two flower magnets and of course some dark chocolate, too!

All the little girls got to bring a flower up to the Mary statue and one girl crowned Mary with a flower wreath. We had a delicious lunch, the little girls all got to do a cake walk and for the second year in a row, Lily won a basket of cookies! Lacey came with Tristan who was one week old - that was very special to have her join us and he was an angel - slept through the whole event! And our special guest was Great-grandma Elsa (Scott's mom)! We are so blessed to have her join us in these special events.

Tristan Ryder Prueitt is here!!

Our baby boy is here! He came on May Day!! Lacey was actually going to be induced on Friday morning, but she started having contractions Thursday night, so she headed to the hospital just before midnight and they let her stay. She called me around 2:30am to say they were going to get the epidural started, so I called Scott to come down and stay with Addie, then I called Dina to come and get me and Caleb and we headed to the hospital. She had him at 4:50 AM Friday morning, he weighed a whopping 8 pounds 14 ounces and is 20 inches long!! He has short dark hair and a nice brown complexion. He is so cute, just like a little doll! Lacey is doing well, is home now and the little guy is very good, just eats and sleeps and doesn't make a lot of noise (yet!). Addie is our little tornado and wild thing. I am glad that Aaron is able to stay home a couple of days to help out with Addie.

Lacey's Surprise Baby Shower

Dina and I knew we were cutting it close to Lacey's due date, but it was the only date that was good for so many of us, so we went with April 25. I told Lace we needed to go up to the Oregon Golf Club and have lunch before the end of the month in order to satisfy our quarterly food allowance at the club. So everyone was already there when we came and she was surprised! We went with the "Monkey" theme that she was using in the nursery. I made some cute little boxes and had blue and brown M & M's and mints that were individually wrapped that said "baby boy" for a little party favor for everyone. Dina got little cupcakes with brown and white icing and we had a cute little stuffed monkey sitting in the middle of the cupcake platter! Kim, Teale, Joan (Dina's mother-in-law) Chris (Aaron's mom), Great grandma Elsa (Scott's mom), and two of my friends, Mary and her mom, Marie came to share the afternoon with us. We all had such a great time laughing and telling stories, it was a very good day!

First Communion for Ellie

April 19th was a big day for Ellie, she received her first communion. It was a beautiful warm day, in the high 70's. She looked so beautiful in her new white dress that her other Nana bought for her. Her veil was actually my wedding veil that my mom made for me! Wasn't that special? Papa Ben came, Papa Bill, Great-grandma Elsa, Papa Scott, Nana, me and then of course Ellie's parents and Lily. Jalen stayed home with Jamie's sister! After the service we went back to Dina and Jamie's house to share a meal and eat some delicious cake. I made cake balls that everyone raved about! What a great day and I am so proud of Ellie!

Easter Celebration

We all went to Lacey's house for the Easter egg hunt and to have dinner. We all brought something to the table! Jalen and Addie had so much fun looking for the easter eggs that Aaron hid for them. They had really good eyes spotting those eggs. Because the day was very rainy, he hid a lot of the eggs in their garage. He has a elk head with a rack mounted on one wall and he has a couple of big quads also. So he hid the eggs in the elk's ears and on top of his head and the little ones had no trouble spotting those eggs! He hid eggs inside all sorts of cracks and crevices of the quads - like the muffler and such. Addie would take eggs from Jalen's basket, but then he would take from hers, too, so it was all fair. What a great day with the little ones. The big kids had fun, too.