Ready for the Gym

                  

Sunglasses

                       

Shade Sails

Bobbins had been hankering for some shade in the backyard and bought some large triangle cloths from Ikea the other day.  Zach came over Sat. and we rigged them up.

            

            

              

               

We also finished the playset, installing the cover on top, the yellow driving wheel for JoJo, some more grips on the climbing wall, and the Olympian rings next to the swings.  I was pretty surprised MM could not only reach the rings but also pull her legs perpendicular to her waist.

I was going to include a photo of the bolt we had to cut out of the driving wheel on the first go around but forgot to snap it.

Only two trips to Home Depot after our original trip...

Pleased to re-use one 2x4 from the side lockers we tore down 2 yrs ago.

Our Gov't's Prioritites Now

Good but also sad chuckles in Mark Steyn's column Sunday:

So today our money-no-object government spends lots of money but to no great object. What are Big Government’s priorities now? Carpeting Catholic universities with IUDs. Regulating the maximum size of milk-coffee beverages. As Obama told us: “That’s how we built this country — together. We constructed railroads and highways. . . . Together, we touched the surface of the moon, unlocked the mystery of the atom.” And as we will one day tell our grandchildren: “Together, we touched the surface of the decaf caramel macchiato and deemed it to be more than 16 ounces. Together, we unlocked the mystery of 30-year-old college students’ womanhood. One small step to the Ikea futon for a lucky Georgetown Law freshwoman, one giant leap for womankind. Who will ever forget the day when the Union Pacific Board of Health Compliance and the Central Pacific Agency of Sustainable Growth Enhancement met at Promontory Community College, Utah, to hammer in the Golden Spike condom dispenser?”

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to my own dad and to the other guys out there.  We had a nice blessing from Fr. John at 9am Mass today.  Yesterday MM woke up before us and was playing in JoJo's room when I came out of our room.  She said: "Hey big guy!"  We had quite a laugh about that one.

I got one of the neatest, most special cards today

And later MM took me to the movies, which happened to be her first trip to the cinema.  She was a little scared of the dark going in, and the loud sound, but the soda and peanut M&Ms helped.  It was a nice afternoon.

2 Articles

1) The Kids Aren’t All Right: New Family Structures and the “No Differences” Claim

The widely circulated claim that parents engaged in same-sex relationships do just as well as other parents at raising children—a claim widely known today as the “no differences” thesis—is not settled science. Two new peer-reviewed studies released this week by the academic journal Social Science Research challenge the claim that there are no differences in outcomes between children raised by parents who have same-sex relationships and those raised by their biological mother and father in intact, stable marriages.

2) One is the loneliest number: meet New York’s only new priest

Being the archdiocese’s sole member of the Class of 2012 is a slightly uncomfortable distinction for Father D’Arcy, 33, a soft-spoken man who prefers to stay out of the spotlight. He is not a native New Yorker, nor even an American citizen. Father D’Arcy comes from a small suburb of Toronto, about 80 miles northwest of Niagara Falls, and transferred to the seminary here three years ago, he said, because he had a special interest in working with Latin American immigrants, and had heard that New York needed such priests.

The number of seminarians has been declining, in New York and nationally, since the 1960s. St. Joseph’s, the New York Archdiocese’s stately limestone seminary in Yonkers, opened in 1896 with room for 180 students. It graduated 25 or 30 men annually through the mid-1970s, but since the mid-1990s, most graduating classes have had fewer than 10 priests. Before this year, the archdiocese’s smallest graduating class was in 1998, with two priests.

Tear Down This Wall! 25 Yrs

My brother-in-law Mark pointed out that today is the 25th anniversary of Reagan's "Tear Down this Wall" speech in Berlin.

What a moment for freedom!  Sure wish we had the Gipper running this year.  Could use his leadership and principle.