St. Valentine's Day

Happy St. Valentine's Day love birds!

We are doing little to nothing for the big day (well Gran is coming in tonight so she can be on monitor watch tomorrow night while we have a very late post-MM-bedtime date... Thanks G)

And Charlie was sweet enough to tell me Happy Valentine's Day while he was brushing his teeth this morning. That's Love.

But his real gift was rocking MM to sleep after she woke up 3 times in a 20 minute time frame at 11:30pm while letting me get to bed. 

Now that REALLY is love.

I thought I would share a little love with a Family Profile today.

This is the Monroe Family

You have dad (Ty), Mom (Bethany), Malachi (Striped), Conley (Pirate Necklace), and Blaise (Straw Chomper).

The very first time I met this fab family of five (wow, alliteration) we were at a Catholic families dinner at Dr. Paul Griffith's house. I was instantly in deep conversation with Bethany about kids, and family, and living in Durham (they had just moved here few months before from Maine). I held Blaise for no less than 2 hours and let him chew and slobber on my watch for the entire time, not to mention playing with the other two boys. They liked Charlie and I so much, they asked if we could come over and play the next day. And the love began.

The parents are the groundwork of this family, so let's cover them:

Ty is hyper-smart and completing his Master in Theological Studies at Duke Divinity (just like Charlie) and has an interview at Notre Dame at the end of February for the PhD program, he is also looking forward to more opportunities at other faraway and cold locals... which we are not thrilled about. We tried our darnest to get him to stay in Durham so we could play more, but that was not in the cards.  Boo. Charlie and Ty have grown to become very good friends very quickly. They have long theological conversation that Bethany and I roll our eyes about, drink similar beer, and pretend to do school work together.

Bethany is so extremely sweet and wonderful. She has to have THE MOST patience with people. Have you seen how many boys she has? Come on, that means something... She is thoughtful, and creative, and puts up with way more than she probably should. Like me, she agreed to put everything on hold to become a poor graduate student's wife, but in a town that she didn't know, without any family close by, and only having 1 car for the whole family. Saint status there people. She is one of the best people EVER, and I wish to be more like her daily. She deals with all of the eccentricities that each child might have, all with at least a 1/2 smile on her face.

I say this to say that they are SO still in love with each other all of the time. I mean I have seen a few arguments between them (yes, we are that close) but you know there is still so much love and support between these two. The itty bitty house they live in (and have essentially completely re-done) is so full of excitement and love (and kids yelling to be honest) it makes you feel so happy! All of the restrictions, and breath-holding that this crazy family has had, these two have made it through with flying colors.

They take the time to talk to their kids about the feast days, how important different things are in the life of The Church, and how to be strong Christians and Catholics.

I don't know what else I can say about this amazing family.

Please pray for Ty and the family as they move forward on their journey to Doctoral programs!