The Perfect Day

[Click on photos to enlarge.]


Leah was baptized yesterday, March 30, 2008 at Founders Chapel on the campus of the University of San Diego. She was baptized by Fr. Mike White in a private ceremony (only attended by close family and friends). Auntie Martha (our wonderful friend of many years) is Godmother and Uncle Andy (Martha's younger brother and another good friend of ours) is Godfather.

Leah is such a sweet, mellow baby, so it was no surprise that she did so well throughout the ceremony. She didn't cry at all until we started taking pictures. She didn't even whimper when Father poured the water over her head!


Fr. Mike is also such a sweet person. He's so pleasant to be around. He baptized Emily, and it's no wonder we chose him to perform Leah's ceremony as well. I hope he's around for all our kids! (He said, "As long as they [at the school] don't retire me, I'll be here.") We all love the guy!

Founders Chapel is such a gorgeous church, too. Everyone seems to fall in love with it when they see it for the first time. Only alumni can get married there or have their children baptized there. I feel very lucky to have that privilege. Stephen and I were married at The Immaculata (the main church on campus), and both our babies were baptized at Founders. Fr. Mike warmly said to me, "Welcome home [to USD]!" I gotta say, it really does always feel so good to go "home".

After the baptism, we all congregated at Martha's home in Poway for a delightful reception. We enjoyed each other's company and ate delicious food: carne asada that Andy threw on the grill (Five Star Market in Escondido sells it already prepared and it's SO good); Martha's mom made rice & beans; my mom made potato salad and crab macaroni salad; chips & dips; fruit; veggies; and to finish, my sister, Cecilia, made our famous chocolate cake. Yum!!

I'd also like to comment on how well Emily did all day. It was a long (albeit a lovely!) day, and she was so cooperative. Lately she'd been waking up kinda cranky, but yesterday she was in such a happy mood as soon as she got out of bed. The fact that she got to wear a beautiful dress didn't hurt, of course. This child is quite the girly-girl. Every day she's asking me for a dress to put on! At the party she enjoyed tossing her big purple ball and kicking Daddy's soccer ball around. And when J (Martha's cousin) accidentally kicked the ball over the fence and into a drainage ditch, Em and H (our 10-year-old friend and neighbor) got such a kick (no pun intended) out of watching Ken hop over and fetch it out of the nasty green, murky water. Em kept shouting, "Ken, NO!! You'll get your shoes wet!!" ;-) H gave Emily a cute Dora softball set, and I heard that she's quite capable of hitting the ball with the bat. (I unfortunately didn't get to see it.) Like I mentioned in our Christmas letter, she seems to be pretty good at sports!

I hope to put more pictures up on Flickr in the near future. Here I posted a few highlights. My sister, Cecilia, was photographer.

What a beautiful day yesterday was. Even the weather was gorgeous: some refreshing light rain in the morning, followed by sun and cool, lovely breezes. The temperatures were in the 60s all day. (Now that's my kind of weather!)