House Blessing

My little brother Hunter, who saved every quarter our grandparents ever gave us and probably used those quarters as a down payment, recently bought a house and my whole family congregated there last weekend for his house blessing.

The house is pretty awesome, and I wanted to just blow in like a giant storm and sweep away the whole house, including its spacious floor plan and exposed brick dining room and huge backyard with established trees and relocate it for myself.  His girlfriend Caroline is a florist, so she arrived with sunflowers and made the house immediately look magazine worthy. 

We were the first weekend guests to arrive, so unfortunately Hunter wasted the clutter-free countertops on us because we do tend to arrive with a tornado of matchbox cars and phone chargers and people who start opening kitchen cabinets and emptying them onto the floor.  My sister’s family arrived the same way a few hours later and while Casey would have previously (and did again this weekend) chastised me for leaving crap everywhere, she’s a mother now too and left her share of sippy cups laying about.  Because the house blessing and party were planned for Saturday night, we all thought it was best to head to the zoo with my dad and leave my mom and Hunter to cook and get ready for the party.  

I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but I’m not ashamed to post the same things over and over after every trip to Tyler.  The Caldwell Zoo is just the best.  We headed straight for the Wild Bird Encounter.

I’m not sure what the difference was, cooler weather maybe, but the birds were the feistiest I’ve ever seen them.  They didn’t hesitate to climb onto the popsicle stick of bird food, or onto your hands or back or shoes.

My dad was the official photographer last weekend, which explains why these picture are a million times better than the pictures usually featured here.  That also explains why he’s not in any of the pictures, although that is his foot.

I love a good candid action shot, and here’s why:  What is happening just to the left of the next picture?  Trent and Chris were both watching the same thing and they don’t look to excited about it.  Mystery!

My dad bought what we call a “Norwegian lunch” for Rush – ice cream.

No trip to the Caldwell Zoo is complete without a stop in the gift shop for fifty cent (yes!  best gift shop ever!)  animal print sunglasses.

The house blessing that evening was wonderful.  There was a great crowd of people of all ages, from my 10 month old niece to some older (older like old enough to have kids in high school) people from my brother’s church.  We all gathered in the entry way of the home, then moved as a group from room to room.  In each room the priest would say a prayer relevant to the location, for example, by the front door, praying for the people who would be coming and going and that the home would be welcoming.  I think that was the gist of it.  At the time I was trying to keep Rush from escaping to the backyard, but I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. 

I do know that I was so proud of my brother and happy for him, not necessarily because he took the step of buying a house, but because he’s making a good life for himself.  It was hard when he was a recent college graduate, living in a seedy apartment complex in a town where he didn’t know anyone.  A few years later he has a very nice place to live (I fall asleep dreaming about how I would arrange my furniture in that house) and a community of people who obviously care about him.  Most of his friends at the party were from church and I’m so happy that he found the church and became an active part of it.  I can see how that is enriching his life.

Also, the priest’s daughter walked in and immediately declared that she and Rush were getting married.  Rush told her they should wait until they could get married in a castle. 

A house blessing is also of course a party, so we ate and celebrated and talked until everyone left, then we stayed up to play a board game.

It is very disturbing to me that a can of Sprite looks so much like a can of Miller Light.  I spent half of my evening doing double takes over that can.  Since when are lemon-lime drinks blue?

The weekend wrapped up with the perfect example of why Mother’s Day is, let’s all go ahead and admit it, the stupidest holiday.  Tate woke up at 2 AM on Sunday morning making the most horrible, can’t breathe, barking cough.  It was terrifying.  Thankfully my mom was there, so I woke her up and we stayed with Tate in the backyard until who knows what time, trying to calm him down and debating whether or not to go to the emergency room.  So Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.  I’m a grown woman and you stayed up half the night with me; here’s some granola that I made for you.  Flowers, cards, diamond tennis bracelets, a mason jar of granola, it’s pathetic to think that any of these things would be enough to thank my mother or let her know how much I love and appreciate her.  Granola.  Come on.

Tate is fine, by the way.  When I took him to the doctor on Monday morning, she did assure me that it was highly unlikely that he picked up any strange virus from licking the birdseed popsicle every few minutes. 

In the end, I just wish Tyler was closer and not hours away.