I haven't posted in an age - and sometimes I ask myself if my time blogging is coming to an end. I've been doing this since 2010, and I find my commitment to blogging consistently to be flagging a little bit. Then again, I love looking back and seeing the wonderful memories and the stories that my blog tells. I suppose only time will tell if I keep this up...
Two weekends ago, I met up with some wonderful friends from church for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and we had the best time! These ladies have been such a blessing to me and I am so happy that I've been able to *finally* make wonderful, Godly friends that I can spend time with! Ryan and I also had a date night together at Logan's, where I tried a "dirty soda" and Ryan had his favorite; a steak! It was a good weekend - but then, I always have a wonderful time when I'm with my best friend.
The cats continue to feel the need to assist (I use that word loosely) with all cooking, especially when veggies are involved: potatoes make perfect balls, easy to roll around the kitchen and chase, but apparently broccoli is also a fun toy and Brussel sprouts are good for a gentle swipe too! Usually if broccoli or brussels are stolen, they are eaten by Spook! My office plants are growing like weeds and are climbing up the windows like crazy ... I cannot believe how much they've grown in the eighteen months I've been at my job! It's incredible!
For the second to last weekend of August - my parents joined Ryan and I for a trip into the corner of DC for the day! I say the corner of DC because we were literally in DC for all of a mile or so to our destination, so I felt like we were barely in DC! We started the day with breakfast at First Watch in Silver Springs (I think it was Silver Springs) and then popped over to Gaithersburg to check out a train before making our way to our main destination for the day.
There is a monastery in DC - the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America and when I tell you it's a hidden gem, I mean it! You can schedule a tour for free; they do ask you make a donation of at least $3, but for everything you are able to see, $3 feels like a very paltry ask! The monastery is gorgeous and is surrounded by beautiful gardens that are open to the public, so you can pop over and check out the gardens anytime you'd like. I stumbled on this spot through Instagram and knew we had to check it out - so we set a date, and headed for the monastery!
The monastery is designed in such a way that if you are not able to make a trip to the Holy Land, they aim to give you as exact a representation as they can. The church itself is built using measurements taken from the Holy Land - so within the church, the alter showing the crucifixion of Christ is across from the altar mimicking Christ's tomb - and they are exactly the same distance apart as the locations are in the Holy Land. The representation of the Nativity is located at the same depth as the supposed spot of the Nativity in the Holy Land; it's all incredibly precise and also incredibly beautiful!
The outdoor corridor ringing a portion of the gardens has Ave Maria in over 200 languages, both spoken and some forgotten languages, beginning with Anglo-Saxon and ending with Zulu, along the way showcasing languages such as Egyptian hieroglyphics, Yucatan and Navajo - just to name a few. The corridors also showcase the life of Christ through mosaics at numerous points along the walk, taking the visitor from the visit of the Angel Gabriel to Mary, through the life of Christ, to his crucifixion, resurrection and seat in Heaven at the right hand of God.
The interior of the monastery is just breathtaking - I truly cannot stress that enough. The attention to detail is astounding; we were there for a few hours and I know I didn't begin to see everything because there was so much to take in! They did tell us on Good Friday, they recreate the crucifixion (which sounds weird typing - but they way they explained it sounds amazing) without the gruesome points, of course. We were able to explore the church on our own before our tour began, and then the tour guide explained things more in depth and took us into the basement of the church!
The basement of the church was a whole other layer of interesting - literally, ha-ha! They have a recreation of the catacombs of Rome underneath the church, which I personally felt was really fascinating! They also have several other altars located beneath the church - including one called Purgatory (yikes) and the bones/relics from some Saints - as this is a Catholic monastery. I think; perhaps, all the monasteries are usually Catholic... aren't they? Our tour guide kept saying "if you'll please meet me back in purgatory after you finish looking" and I was like "no thanks - I'm good".
The altar of purgatory is pictured above and you can see the souls in hell begging/praying/etc... to be let into Heaven - which sounds awful. The final stop before we were above ground again was the recreation of the Nativity and the visit from the Three Wise Men. All in all, the tour was extremely fascinating and I am so glad we were able to visit this spot, take the tour and see this gorgeous monastery!
Our final stop on the way home was to a Krispy Kreme to get a Harry Potter, Hogwarts House donuts box with our very own Sorting Hat donuts to sample! Krispy Kreme currently has a promotion where they have a donut for each of the four houses, and you can get a Sorting Hat donut with colored cream filling it - and when you bite into it, you'll find out what House you've been sorted into, ha-ha!
I will preface this by saying that I am a Hufflepuff, Ryan is a Gryffindor, my Mom is a Gryffindor and we gave my Dad the test and he's a Ravenclaw! When we bit into our donuts, Ryan was sorted into Gryffindor, I was sorted into Gryffindor, my Dad was sorted into Gryffindor and my Mom was sorted into Ravenclaw, ha-ha! And listen - none of these pictures are flattering, but my Dad's picture absolutely cracks me up!
August was a good month - and it seemed like it flew by! I cannot believe that September is mere days away and the last four months of this year; the best four months of the year, in my opinion, are about to unfold in front of us. I know time flies when you're having fun, so I guess I had quite a lot of fun in August - and September looks pretty good too. I leave you with Bagheera, trying to conjure up Autumn by staring into the flames of a candle, surrounded by our home grown pumpkins.
No comments:
Post a Comment