It's a Goal: England 2010!

In a manner most familiar to the Rene sensibility (especially that of Fr. Richard Rene), the Rene family is resolving to spend their entire vacation in July 2010 in Merry Olde England, visiting Uncle Ric, Aunt Morag and Cousins Isabelle, Matthew and Emma.

A bold move, but the time has come (the Walrus said) for those in the Rene household not familiar with the delights of that beautiful green island to finally get their feet wet. Real fish and chips, castles, the Underground, the cliffs of Dover, Canterbury Cathedral--here we come!

The plan is to start saving now to fly from wherever is cheapest and spend three weeks with Fr. Richard's relatives. That saves us on room and board (pretty much), leaving us with the cost of flights and spending money--a large sum, but anything is possible if you set your mind to it. As one of our fellow priests says, May it be blessed!

John says: "Let's take a break" and then laid down right on top of Gabe.

Playtime

I was listening to Bach's Magnificat via YouTube the other day and John was inspired to get out his priest things. What a cutie.

We had a catastrophe in the house this week and I've been trying to find to words to tell you about it. The short of it is Oreo bit John and she no longer lives with us. We went from feeling totally thrilled with the new addition to our house to abject sadness. John is fine, we did take him to the ER where they patched him up with some tape, prescribed antibiotics and where we got a family doctor (that's a huge blessing!). The hardest part now is trying to understand why this happened. Oreo seemed like the perfect dog - happy, easy, loved the kids, just the day before she was smothering John in kisses. So the house seems empty now without her - her previous owner took her back to try and find another home - one without kids - for her. I miss her and yet have this urge to eradicate all traces of her. Well- here is John...His eye is not as swollen is he's making it look here - that's just a squint for the sake of the camera. The doctor in the ER also assured me that he'll heal up quickly and that it won't look too bad in a few weeks. She even showed me her dog bite scar from September that was hardly visible!


After this his face looked really funny - dough, then chocolate, then cream cheese from lunch!

Wisdom! Let us attend!

School Desk

I just had to take a picture of the table during school hours for posterity. The boys are eating yogurt, I'm drinking coffee (lots of coffee!), Lily's doing Language Lessons with history waiting in the wings. Even Dad joined us at the table this morning with his work!

And then we were SIX....

We adopted a beautiful 2 and a half year old Lab cross. She is delightful, loves the kids and definitely fills up the house!

Christmas goodies

As kids my brother and I received pajamas every year for Christmas. Mom made them and we always opened them on Christmas Eve. I loved that as a kids and this year finally started the tradition with my family:


Today we got a fireplace! We never really know what to ask for from R's family and usually go the Amazon route but inspiration struck and zoila: