Kansas City Is Sticky

  A few facts about Kansas City:

• It’s hot. 
• SO many streets have the same name (like 7th St shows up all over the place). 
• It’s muggy. 
• There’s a Kansas side and a Missouri side…and they’re like two separate cities with the same name. 
• It’s humid. 
• Everything is about the Chiefs and the Royals. So we went to a Royal’s game, and watched them lose royally to the Tigers.
• Oh, and did I mention it’s sticky?
• It is home to the tallest water slide in the world.

But what stuck out to me the most is the awesome families and religious I met. Our host families were wonderful, and it’s always such a blessing to stay with devout Catholic families. There’s something intensely beautiful about parents who are unafraid of expressing how much they love their children.

It is also home to:

• some Little Sisters of the Poor (who just got named on NOW’s Dirty 100 list)
• The Little Brothers and Sisters of the Lamb, a mendicant order of the Dominican family who live in the poorest neighborhood in town, and beg door to door for their food (yeah, that’s hardcore!)
• And some Apostles of the Interior Life, a men’s religious order whose purpose is to provide spiritual direction to college students and train lay people in spiritual mentoring! They are so needed.

So that’s my impression of Kansas City. And I like it.

Happy Independence Day from Nebraska!

(PC Angela Marino)

We had an amazing weekend in Lincoln celebrating independence!

(PC Angela Marino)

On the 4th, we headed to the Omaha Zoo, the top zoo in the nation. They had an aquarium with puffins, huge fish, sharks, and best of all, penguins! This one very happy penguin kept swimming into the glass without realizing it. Bump, bump, bump, and he just kept swimming forward with an adorable smile. So cute!

(PC Angela Marino)

(PC Angela Marino)

The zoo also had spindly giraffes, rhinos which loved to roll in the mud, all the big cats you can imagine, bears including a very hot polar bear who looked out of his element, and an entire butterfly pavilion! Unique to this zoo was the habitats – a desert, swamp, and rainforest with many animals living in the same environment. It was quite an adventure.

(PC Clarissa James)

Afterwards, we headed back to our wonderful hosts…the School Sisters of Christ the King. They barbequed kabobs and corn, fed us all-you-can-eat watermelon, and topped it off with s’mores. We had such an enjoyable evening talking and hanging out with these lovely brides of Christ.

(PC Clarissa James)

(PC Angela Marino)

Once it was dark, the sisters set up a humongous collection of fireworks. Being from California, I’d never set off any that shoot up into the air. Even the sparklers they had are illegal in my home state! We joined a few of the younger sisters in setting off the fireworks…they had a blast! Since they live in the country, we could see a score of firework displays from Lincoln, lining up along the horizon line.

Mother played her guitar as we sang patriotic and folk songs. The sister’s sweet voices filled the air, and although we constantly messed up the lyrics, it was quite lovely. The evening ended with compline, night prayer. The fireworks sounded on through the night, stretching out over fields full of fireflies.