Happy Ash Wednesday!

And Lent, mind you.  Anyways, Lent starts today, and we are having an all school mass, and in our house we have this chart called "The Virtue Chart " .  Every time we do something like Love of God, Truthfulness, Industry, Love of Neighbor, Obedience, etc. we get to put up a sticker! Then when you et 20 stickers, you get to chooe an award like going to Menchie's, skipping school, going to to lunch, having a friend come over, ( speaking of friends, this past weekend I went to my camp friend's house, Annie Akers, and Anne arie and Mary Catherine went too, because she has two little sisters their age, Teresa and Mary Frances, and their mom is expecting a baby, Brigid , in April! It was really fun, and surprisingly, Annie and I went to bed first! :P  ) and other rewards. For Lent,  fasting- wise, I am giving up chocolate, praying-wise, I am going to try to be more cheerful about praying the rosary, and am going to try to pray or read the bible every night, and abstinence- I -think- it's -called -wise, I am going to try to be kinder to my friends, siblings, and other fellow aquantinces, and am going to try to pray for others and do good deeds for them .  If you want to, go ahead and send me an email about what you are giving up! Also, we will be having families over to pray the rosary but also do other fun family friendly activities during Lent. We are also going to have two families over sometime next month to go to this really pretty nature walk called Hylebos, and we are going to pray the stations. Another thing we are doing is having 5 friends over each, and we will have a lenten retreat just as we did last year. We will also be visiting the Fish Fry a couple of times, and I am going to this thing called Sacred Space, a Jr. High rally, for the 6th to 12th graders of the Archdiocese of Western Washington, and it is like a retreat, with mass, a dance, two general talks for everyone to listen to, then two  workshops for everyone to take part in. I am really looking forward to it, and if you are going, email me or tell me, because I would love to know what workshops you are doing and things like that! : )

Happy Lent,

GRACIE <3