Catch up

The blog has been neglected for a couple of weeks. :( In a nutshell, John is back in school, I am super busy at work, and we just had our first guests at our house for respite care. Having M and A at the house for the weekend was a nice intro to our foster care lives. M was really sweet and since she doesn't know much English, the language of the 2 days was Spanish. I told M that my head hurt the first night because the gears in my head were so rusty. Spanish is her second language, Quich'e being the first.

We took the ferry to Seattle on Saturday and walked to Pike Place Market. She enjoyed the ferry ride and talked a lot more than I anticipated, which was great. At 5'2" I felt so tall around her! She's very petite, so John and I were like giants.

Sunday came and we all went to Mass. Little A did great for the hour in church. After a quick lunch, we headed to Tacoma to meet up with her foster family. Hopefully, she had a good weekend, because we loved having them. And hopefully, we'll get to see them next month.

I heard from our licensor tonight that there is the possibility that little ones from Haiti will be in the international foster care program. We are on CCS' available list. The kids of Haiti have been on my mind a lot, obviously, and I wanted to be able to do something to help them. Maybe this will be our way.

God bless the children who suffer.

A Campbell Christmas

Welcome to our Christmas home. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' house in Port Orchard and went to Christmas Day Mass at our parish. Christmas Day was spent relaxing at our house. Before we went to the Campbells' house on Christmas night, we drove around to see the lights. One house in Bremerton had their house decked out in lights which were synchronized to music. On Boxing Day, John and I hosted our annual brunch for our parents and Joe and Miriam. We love doing that. Besides John getting sick, we had a really nice Christmas. Some of the other photos were taken at Jim and Sue's house on Christmas night.

New Year's Eve was spent with Tammy and Andrew in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle at a Belgian restaurant called "Brouwers." Tammy is in school with John. We got home around 10:30 and had a quiet ringing in of 2010.

Happy New Year and all of God's blessings to you and your families!

The Psalter of my Days

My gosh, I remember this book. I remember sitting in the chapel at the formation center in Wakefield, RI trying to read the "original" (or not so original as we now know) Spanish text. Really and truly, I am grateful that I had a hard time those two years "getting into" Maciel's book of letters called "Envoy."

And I'm thankful that the visitation has been underway and is now nearing an end. Let's hope that many changes are made within LC/RC and that the ones who helped Maciel in his double life and subsequent cover up will be removed.

Read Patrick Madrid's comments on this latest development here.

Third Week of Advent

Yesterday I got a call at work from our foster care licensor, Betzy. She let me know that our licensing was finished and had been sitting on someone's desk at the state because they were behind. But--we are licensed and can start receiving placements!

It is a bit surreal since we have been waiting for this for some time. However, it's in His time and not ours. This morning I was thinking that this week is a perfect week to get this good news. The third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday. We light the pink candle--a symbol of rejoicing in joyful hope for the Savior. Because of all that was going on Sunday night and this week (funeral and finals), we were not able to light our third candle until last night, when we got the good news. I think it was kind of meant to be that way. :)

Maybe we'll have a kiddo or kiddos with us for Christmas, and maybe not. But we do have hope and joy which we'll share with the little hearts who stay with us. There is always room at our little inn.

Thank you all for your prayers and support for us. Your friendship and help mean the world.

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice; let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.

Immaculate Conception

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception is such a beautiful celebration in the Catholic Church. It is the dogma that the Mother of God was conceived without sin. Wouldn't you like to see what festivities are going on in Heaven today?

Hopefully, someday we will. We pray that Pere Pere/Grandpa and all of our beloved departed are sitting at the feet of their Blessed Mother soaking in her beauty and love.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Pray for us, Grandpa.

Grandpa Dion

Early this morning, Bernard Dion passed from this life to the eternal one. We are so sad for the loss of this godly and beloved man, who is the father of my mom-in-law, Suzanne Dion Campbell.



This past July, the Dion family had a reunion over in Edmonds. It was so nice to meet many of the people I have heard about from Sue and to put names with faces. The highlight of the party was celebrating Grandpa's 96th birthday.




Besides his sweet nature and his always classy and gentlemanly ways and dress, the thing I loved most about him was how much he loved his dear wife, Yvonne. She passed away in 1997, and at every meal I had with Grandpa, he would pray for the eternal repose of the soul of his "dear wife, Yvonne." After more than 60 years married when she died, they were so loving to each other and took delight in each other's company. I hope that I will be as good a spouse to John as Grandpa and Grandma Dion were to each other.

Grandpa's honest way of living has been passed on to the generations that came after him. It is evident in his four children, Ron, Annette, Ray and Suzanne, and their children. I see it in John and am so happy that they were close. We loved listening to him tell stories of his childhood, marriage and family life which had the joie de vivre of his family's French Canadian background and Grandma's Parisian background.



Thank you, Grandpa for all that you taught me, and thank you for living your faith so well. I'll miss the dinners with you and hearing, "Go easy on the butter." Til we meet again.

Qu'il repose en paix. Amen.

Thanksgiving

This is a late Thanksgiving post, but I didn't want to skip it. We had such a nice Thanksgiving weekend, starting with Mass and then a coffee from Starbucks. My boss, Mike, had given me a $25 gift card! It was such a nice surprise!

In the afternoon, we went over to Mom and Dad Campbell's house which is always relaxing and fun. They made the turkey, and Christina and I split up the sides and desserts. Christina has a real talent for desserts and made this amazing pumpkin and ginger cheesecake. It was to die for. Sitting around the table with everyone made me realize how blessed I am to have married into this family. Joe was missing from the table, but he spent the holiday with the family of his roommate. We look forward to seeing him soon!

My mom and dad were in Dallas with my brother, Matt, his wife, Sayeda and her family. Can't wait to see some photos of the trip.

Joey, my mom and dad's dog, turned 14 on Thanksgiving! He got some extra kisses and some treats.

God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, fantastic family and friends, good health and a good job. Who could ask for more?