A truly blessed weekend...

(Brendan)

By the grace of God, my youngest brother, Evan, was ordained to the holy priesthood by Archbishop John Nienstedt this past Saturday (May 26th) at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, MN! It was a truly blessed weekend and an almost incomprehensible grace for our family, and indeed for the whole Church. For the sake of documenting this wonderful event on our blog I wanted to make sure and post some pictures. A few of these are pictures I took, and a lot of them were taken by my sister who has a much better camera :-) Click any picture to enlarge.

Deacon Evan in prayer before the ordination mass.

Molly and me and the kids (minus Francis, who at 22 months wasn't going to make it through a 2 1/2 hour mass), seated with the rest of our family.

Evan processing in with the other men to be ordained priests.

Archbishop John Nienstedt

In prayer during the Litany of the Saints.

The laying on of hands

Our oldest, Clara (Evan's Goddaughter), was one of three to bring up the gifts.

Fr. Evan concelebrating his first mass

After the mass, Fr. Evan gives his priestly blessing to our parents.

We receive our Fr. Evan's blessing

An extended family picture

Later at the reception, Molly and I get a picture with Fr. Evan and our family. (We have another blessing on the way as well! Due at the end of August -- prayers always appreciated).

Fr. Evan's vestments, designed by my Dad with input from Evan and made by a very talented lady who makes priestly vestments in Coon Rapids, MN.

Fr. Evan's chalice

The next day is Fr. Evan's first mass of thanksgiving at the parish where we grew up, St. Rita's in Cottage Grove, MN. The Handmaids of the Heart of Jesus, a wonderful order of sisters from New Ulm, MN arrive for the mass to support Fr. Evan in prayer and with sung sacred music during the mass.

The consecration

Fr. Evan blesses our grandparents, who celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary the same week.

On Memorial Day we attended daily mass celebrated by Fr. Evan in the chapel of the Companions of Christ house near the St. Paul Seminary. Fr. Evan offered the mass for our Henry Blaise.

Fr. Evan was assigned by Archbishop Nienstedt to St. Stephen's parish in Anoka, MN, which is not far from where we live on the North side of the Twin Cities. We are very excited to attend mass on occasion at St. Stephen's when Fr. Evan is presiding, and have Evan over to our house for lots of visits!

Pioneer School

(Molly)

In early June, Clara and Aidan had an opportunity to participate in a pioneer school experience at the West Riverside Museum School through the Isanti County Historical Society in Cambridge, Minnesota.  For one week, they toted their tin pails filled with old-fashioned lunches, delved into their textbooks from the early 1900's, and enjoyed schooling in a one-room school house.  There were about twenty-five students in grades one through eight taught by a volunteer schoolmarm.

The kids especially enjoyed spending their recess time playing "Red Rover" and "Annie, Annie Over".  The first day home, Aidan said, "There's this thing called 'recess'."  I had to laugh at the fact that my home-schooled son had never heard of recess even though he's sent outdoors every day!  At the end of the week, families were invited for a presentation of poetry and other selections followed by a picnic...cold fried chicken, biscuits, watermelon, and lemonade prepared by Mom.  

Outside the Historic Schoolhouse

 A schoolboy at his desk

The "Annie, Annie Over" Shed 

A cabin on the historical site.  The kids made pancakes here for breakfast one morning. 

A class photo

With the schoolmarm

 Enjoying the water pump

This is the kind of experience I would have loved as a child, so I admit to living vicariously through my children that week.  Rather than make the trek back and forth the other kids and I spent lots of time at parks, the local library, and yes, Caribou Coffee.  Eleanor looks forward to joining them at pioneer school next year!

Evan's ordination to the diaconate!

(Brendan)

Earlier this month we had the joyous occasion of attending the ordination of my brother, Evan, as a transitional deacon of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Evan is a seminarian at the St. Paul Seminary and, God-willing, will be a ordained a priest in May of 2012. But prior to that is his ordination as a deacon, and what a wonderful day it was! Praise God!

(Click any pics to enlarge)

The Koop clan arrives at the Basilica of St. Mary, in Minneapolis.

Evan with the kids prior to the ordination. 

Some of my pics are fuzzy (sorry, took them with my phone) but this gives an idea of the inside of the Basilica of St. Mary for those who haven't been there.

This photo was taken by The Catholic Spirit, our Archdiocesan newspaper (see here).

Evan and his fellow seminarians give their lives to the Lord in the service of the Church.

Evan is ordained a deacon by Archbishop John Nienstedt.

In a very special moment, my father, who is ordained as a permanent deacon, was able to help Evan don his vestments and greet him along with other clergy of the Archdiocese during the liturgy. Awesome!

A group photo after mass.

After mass, Molly and I pray with Evan and...

...receive one of his first blessings as a deacon.

At an open house later in the day, the kids get a blessing from Evan.

What a special blessing it is to have two deacons in our immediate family! We are so looking forward to Evan's ordination to the priesthood next year!

Henry's marker stone completed

(Brendan)

You might remember that I designed a grave marker for our son Henry late last year (see this post). Since then the marker has been created by a company near St. Cloud, MN, with Minnesota granite, and now that the ground has completely thawed the marker has recently been installed. We hadn't been able to see the completed marker until the first time we went to see it at the cemetery, but praise God it turned out just like we had thought it should.

Here was my original design...

Here's a close-up of the left-hand side...

And here are some pictures of the finished marker in place (click any to enlarge)...

(It was raining and cold, so Aidan, Max, and Francis were in the van when I took the pic above)

It is a great relief to finally have this marker in place and to know it will always be there from now on.

Merry Christmas from the Koops!

Here's wishing you a very merry and blessed Christmas to you and your family! Our first Christmas in our new home has been wonderful (and extremely snowy)!

We've had a record snowfall for the month of December in Minnesota...

Francis has been growing bigger and bigger (5 months old now)...

We decided to have a "Little House on the Prairie" Christmas this year, which allowed us to do some fun activities for home school, read aloud the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (great for history lessons), and keep our Christmas gifts modest and simple.

The girls got custom-made period dresses for Christmas (along with a rag doll kit)...

The boys got a football and baseball mitts, and the Dangerous Book for Boys, which has tons of great activities like how to make your own go-cart, and how to build forts and tree-houses...

We made a valiant attempt to make molasses candy like the Ingalls' did using snow (but they turned out a little mushy)...

And of course, after an Advent season of preparing for Christ's birth, we enjoyed welcoming Him into our hearts again this Christmas and had a great time decorating our tree with popcorn and cranberry garland and all of our ornaments...