Back To School/ Back To Blogging

I am on the tail-end of an eight-week (Ignatius of Loyola's) Spiritual Exercises retreat, hence the blogging silence.  At one point I was in a retreat within a retreat, it was awesome.  On top of the Spiritual Exercises, I attended our homeschool group's annual retreat (it is always fantastic but this year was exceptional).  Right after that I attended the catechist's retreat at my parish as I will be helping with the junior high CCD class.  I think I could exist in a state of perpetual retreat!

Anyhow, I'm sure you are all wondering how my oldest did on his first foray into traditional school.  I waited to write about it because I was trying to process everything. As you might expect I had to tackle this new adventure from the spiritual side first.  I prayed a novena to St. John Marie Vianney (patron of our homeschool) specifically to ask for blessings on this child on his first year out of our homeschool. I also tried to spend as much quality time with him since I will be losing his company as my daily Mass/running/exercise/grocery shopping buddy. We added evening walks to our repertoire of quality time where we, along with the newly-turned teen daughter, got to muse about many things both serious and light-hearted.  It is so fun to be around these two as I am learning to navigate motherhood in the teen years. Can I just tell you that I am very blessed to have the relationship I have with my children?  If the only thing good that came out of our homeschooling is the beautiful relationship we have with them I will consider it all a success. But then again there are so many graces that come from a faith-filled life.  And all the credit goes to Christ alone.

The first day of school went well. The morning was relaxed as we took pictures and prayed with him.  My voice started cracking in the middle of prayer as my mind went back to the many morning prayers I have prayed with this child.  And this time around that blessing prayer now involved his other educators.  Okay, I might still be misty-eyed thinking about that as I type.  As for my son, he was a bit terrified when it hit him that he is attending a brick and mortar school (where his dad also went).  But when he got home that afternoon, he told us that as soon as his feet hit the school grounds all of his anxiety went away (thank you Holy Spirit!)

He seems to be coping well, he survived writing his first high school essay and we are seeing a sense of responsibility and initiative that we hope will be sustained.  He thanked me last night for all those Latin lessons as he thinks he did well on his Latin pre-test.  Praised be Jesus Christ!

Usually I dedicate my picture posts for all of you who aren't on Facebook.  Since I am also not on Facebook while on retreat, I have no witty dedication to offer lol.  So here it goes,  pictures for all of us who prefer blog pictures to Instagram ;-)  And no, I am not planning to join Instagram in the near future -

someone is not a morning person

getting ready to drive his boy to school

holding an upside down sign and his favorite dessert made by his siblings, the sign said "Congratulations, you survived the first day of school!"

As promised on my last post, I will write about the race I ran in July and also a retrospective on my first year of running.  I hope you had a good first day of school, traditional or otherwise.