Pentecost and Memorial Day Memories

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful

and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Our Pentecost flame decorations

What a special weekend to get to celebrate both Pentecost and Memorial Day!   The gift of the Spirit and the gift of our country's freedom are so worthy of our grateful hearts and reflections.  

On Sunday, our Easter decorations were conspicuously absent (I'll admit it, I dismantled our 'He Is Risen' banner a bit begrudgingly.  I love the Easter season).  Instead, our table was decorated for a special Pentecost Sunday Breakfast.  To celebrate the "Birthday of the Church," we enjoyed Holy Spirit whole wheat pancakes with whipped cream and sprinkles (every good birthday breakfast requires whipped cream and sprinkles).  We lit candles on our pancakes, read the story of the Holy Spirit coming at Pentecost, and then blew out our candles to make our own mighty wind :).    

Our "Holy Spirit pancakes"

It is always interesting to see what the kids pick up on when we celebrate holidays.  E-Bear was excited to point out that our priest was wearing bright red robes at Mass, "the same color as our table decorations at breakfast, mom!"  On Sunday night, as we celebrated with a cookout at the home of some friends,  G-Bear was asked what we had celebrated earlier that day.  She couldn't quite remember the name of the day or exactly who we were celebrating, but she was sure that we celebrated "the church's birthday!"  

T and I commemorated Memorial Day by watching a Band of Brother's episode.  We gave thanks for our freedom and the military service of our family members and friends.  We both miss being up at the Cabin on weekends like this.  Instead of enjoying pancakes in the kitchen at the lake, I set up our griddle on the porch and finished up our pancake batter (it was too hot to cook the pancakes in our kitchen today!).  It allllmost felt like breakfast Clear Lake :)  

In true cabin style, we lounged around until 1pm in our pjs, coloring pictures and playing with toys.

We finished off our weekend with a steamy afternoon bike ride (each Bear riding their own bike!) and a long, leisurely dinner at Chick-fil-A.  What a treat of a weekend!  We are spoiled silly with blessing around here.  May our hearts overflow with gratefulness for our family, our freedom, our friends and our faith.