On Friday night, I attended a Faith and Friendship event at my good friend Jen's church in Chaska. We had a fantastic buffet, heard some great music and were treated to a fun and insightful discussion of the different types of friends and how friendship affects and enhances our faith. I had a great time and loved getting to connect more with Jen, her sister, Sara and Jen's neighbor. Thanks for the invite, Jen!
Saturday morning we got our pumpkins for carving - a dad, a mom and a baby pumpkin. How perfect! We'll post a picture of our carved pumpkins once they're done. We then had a frantic trip to the grocery store and barely made it to our seminar in the afternoon. The seminar was titled, Celebrations & Rituals During the Childbearing Years and was led by Pam England, author of the book, Birthing from Within, which is the childbirth class we'll be taking.
Here's a synopsis of the seminar from the website:
Deep in our bones we know that birth is a rite of passage. We feel that truth quicken our heartbeat; we seek ritual, we feel our feet want to dance, but we never learned the steps. This afternoon will bring joy, dance, color, tears and laughter as we look at celebrating the thresholds from conception to cronehood. Bringing our experiences, dreams and visions together, we will begin to piece together a “quilt” of ritual and ceremony in which to wrap ourselves and the next generation.
Like Jason mentioned, the environment was very soothing and womb-like. A warm, dim room with candles and incense burning and quiet music playing. I could have fallen asleep! The seminar was very good and definitely pushed us out of our comfort zone, which I appreciate. We live in such a sanitized, robotic (Western) culture devoid of true celebrations of motherhood. Expression of our deepest emotions is very rare in a group setting and tends to make us really uncomfortable. It's much easier to exist at a surface level, but not always the best way to live. As Jason mentioned, I got to participate in a ceremony which was meant to celebrate the passage into motherhood and to help me focus on what it means to me to become a mother. The ceremony involved drums, scarves, dancing, music, etc. It was at the same time very unfamiliar and very cool! I was struck with the awesome realization that the baby we are going to deliver in January will FOREVER be our child and we will be the only parents it will ever have. I know it sounds obvious but the absolute permanence of having a baby is amazing to me. It was a great experience.
Saturday night, I made supper for Jason, Tammy & Alysa which turned out great. And Sunday morning, we got up very early for the marathon. Jason and Dan (his friend and running partner) did fantastic especially considering that the day was excruciatingly hot and humid. It was about 74 degrees and 75% humidity at the start of the race and it only got warmer as the day continued. It was clear that lots of runners were struggling with the heat, but they pushed through and finished. It was a huge accomplishment for Jason and I'm very proud of him! Dan was a great running partner and supporter for Jason. Thanks Dan!
The Twin Cities Marathon is known as the most beautiful urban marathon in the US and I believe it. Here's a couple of pictures from the marathon. The first is a picture of the runners at Mile 22, just to the right of them is the Mississippi - that's the next picture. The last is a picture of the Capitol Building where the marathon ended.
Overall, we had a very busy and fulfilling weekend. I need some sleep...
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