Do I wear the cloak?

Mother Teresa gave these to her sisters to instill the virtue of humility:

I so desperately wanted to rate/grade myself against this list, but then I realized that would be breaking #1.  I have been pondering these in the past few weeks and have so far found NO WAY to avoid #3, how is a Cat like me to avoid curiosity?  So often in my Christian walk I reminded to guard myself against being prideful, but often forgo the difficult task of walking under the cloak of humility. What would I look like if I lived this way?  May the God who is able to do all that we ask and more, give me the grace to see.

1. Speak as little as possible about yourself.

2. Keep busy with your own affairs and not those of others.

3. Avoid curiosity.

4. Do not interfere in the affairs of others.

5. Accept small irritations with good humor.

6. Do not dwell on the faults of others.

7. Accept censures even if unmerited.

8. Give in to the will of others.

9. Accept insults and injuries.

10. Accept contempt, being forgotten and disregarded.

11. Accept injuries and insults.

12. Be courteous and delicate even when provoked by someone. 

13. Do not seek to be admired and loved.

14. Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity.

15. Give in, in discussions, even when you are right.

16. Always choose the more difficult task.

Home grown fun

For the past 7 months we have had workers at our house doing some home repairs and what not.  We had a room built for Austin in the attic space above our room, painted Dania's bathroom, fixed our sagging sun room, stained the decks and underpinning and painted the exterior of the house.  When you have someone in your home for7 months they become friends.  We had many long talks about God, wives, marriage, childrearing and the meaning of life.  I thoroughly enjoyed having them here and so did the kids.  Luke in particular made good friends with them both, and was always challenging them to some kind of competition.  Luke even hounded Chris (the younger guy) to give up cigarettes. (which he did)  Luke even went so far as to write his "hero" paper about Chris.  Often, I would look out the window to see the workers playing some sort of game with the kids, Brad who knew quite a bit of riddles and magic was always stumping them with his tricks.  The workers called their time at our place; The Brock Glory Train

This is how you sleigh ride in the south

They could barely hang on for a minute, Nate was ruthless in his attempts to fling them off

Nate gets sucked into the kickoffs

"I felt something rip"

Chris says "watch a pro do it"

Brad takes a stab at it, while Luke who instigated the whole thing with a "betcha can't" watches on.

Military Weekend

Our town hosts a military weekend every year.  The Band of Brothers military series was based on an infantry group that trained here, and I believe parts of the film were shot here on location as well.  It is a pretty big deal and a wonderful piece of history, so we try to come out every year and see the old planes and go to the demos.

This is the Huey that we all took a ride in at the local airport

Nate is too big to fly this bird, but he keeps on dreaming

Evan mentally gets ready for his first flight in any type of aircraft