Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Holy Week, Pascha, and after...

I know that I have not posted in quite a while... I've been busy:) Petros had his two month appt. last week, you can read about that here. Maintaining two blogs at the same time can be difficult and tricky... I have to figure out where I am going with these two blogs, if I'm going anywhere!

Holy Week was beautiful and busy. I did not attend all of the services, but Paul and I rotated on a few services so that each of us could at least go to one service without children. We all went to Sunday evening bridegroom service. My mother in law and I went to the Monday bridegroom service. Then we all went to the Tuesday evening service because our Metropolitan Gerasimos made his first pastoral visit to our community. He seemed very genuine. Pavlos had a little "encounter" with him... Metropiltan Gerasimos tried to give him a flower but Pavlos became a little afraid so Paul picked him up to take him to the Metropolitan, but Metropolitan Gerasimos told Paul that it was ok and to not "force" Pavlos to go to him.

We all went on Holy Wednesday evening for Holy Unction. Let's just say that I spent the entire service outside of the service because Petros was really, really fussy! He cried almost through the entire service, poor guy. Thursday morning, Petros and I went to Liturgy and Paul was going to go to the Thursday evening service, but ended up taking his mother to urgency care because she thought she was getting bronchitis. Turns out she might have asthma!

Holy Friday was our Youth Retreat which Carrie and I ended up being "in charge of" because we are the Sunday School co-directors (I majorly stressed about the retreat but it turned out really well). And Friday evening was Pavlos' turn to have a meltdown in church so we ended up leaving the service early (after the procession). Saturday morning, Paul went to church and I took the kids to my parents home for an Easter egg hunt with their cousins (although Petros didn't really participate). And I didn't go to the evening service as I thought that I would really not get any sleep at all, even after the service, because the baby would still wake up for feedings, etc. So Paul took his mom and Pavlos to church. But we all went to Agape vespers on Sunday morning (minus Paul's mom because she wasn't feeling well) and then, the Pascha picnic at church where they roasted two lambs! Yummy! Very exciting Holy Week and Pascha! Christos Anesti!

This past Sunday, we were privileged to become god-parents to baby Athanasios. May God grant him many years! And we have god-parents for baby Petros so now we have to plan his baptism!

We are so busy... and then this weekend two friends of mine from high school will be in town and they are coming over for lunch on Saturday. Then we have a fundraising dinner at church on Sunday evening (complete with Greek dancing... woohoo!). We spent last Saturday planting flowers in our yard. And Paul bought a swingset kit to build Pavlos (and Petros) a swingset with slide in our backyard (a birthday gift to Pavlos from grandma). OH, so that means that Pavlos will have his birthday in 9 days... he will be 4 years old:)

Please keep Katina (Ekaterini) in your prayers. She reposed yesterday. I lived with her for a year in San Diego, CA when I was volunteering with Project Mexico. May her memory be eternal!

Sorry for the randomness of this entry... I will attempt something with more depth later on:)

5 comments:

Mimi said...

Christ is Risen!

What a busy and blessed Holy Week! I know the vissitudes of having young children, you are doing great!

Congratulations and many years to the newly illumined child of God and to you for being his Godparents.

Memory Eternal to Ekaterini.

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

Christ is Risen !
How on earth are you finding time to do all this with a new babe, Christina :-)

Prayers for you and your new godson !
..... and for Ekaterina , memory eternal.

Susan said...

Ahummmm, yes you are quite the busy lady. Mother of two.
You didnt mention that we were at church helping you a lot of the time.......we could have been the cause of Pavlos' meltdown on Friday evening service!!
Memory eternal to Katina. She was a different kind of Greek lady.
Marched to the beat of a different drummer.
She was very kind to house you. She was also very welcoming to Katherine and I when we came to visit you when you had your kidney biopsy.
mom

Elizabeth said...

Hi, Christina....do you want suggestions? I find it easier just to go to one blog....I'd suggest just posting your hospital chronicles on the other one (God willing, you won't have more of those!) and keeping everything else here.

And I'll say it: you gals are so lucky who have moms close by to help with the kids. We've not been in the same town as either of our moms, ever, since we moved out. Some space after we married was nice....but I would like to live in the same town as my mother-in-law to help out sometimes.

Christina said...

thanks for the comments... i do know how fortunate i am to have my mom so close... we would have had so much more of a difficult time with the last few months especially if we didn't have my parents around!

Later, I hope to post something in memory of Katina because she was an interesting woman and a surrogate Greek mother for me while living in San Diego.

And I'm hoping (but not promising) to do a once a week photo on my blog from our trip to Greece which was three years ago, but we took tons of pictures and travelled quite a bit and have some great stories to tell about that trip... just an idea for the future:)