Mom's Birthday!

Happy birthday to my wonderful mother! Thank you for everything! I will miss our times together next year! 

with aunt Sr. Martina, OSB, in Germany this past October

2016 in Review

The new year is here, and it's time to reflect on the year that just closed. I'll look at the highlight of each month of 2016.

January
In January I got to go to the March For Life, spent 74 hours in a bus next to my best friend, attended Mass in a roadside ditch during a snowstorm, enjoyed sleeping on a gym floor with nothing but a blanket, and most importantly helped make history and gain media attention for the pro-life cause.

February

North Central ACDA Regional Honor Choir was by far my favorite of my honor choir experiences. Dr. Head was an amazing director and over that magical weekend I learned so much about myself as a musician.

March
Sang for four Masses and one Good Friday liturgy over the Easter Triduum. And early Easter meant that when I turned 17, it was no longer Lent!

April
In April BHS choirs went on a trip to Omaha to see Phantom of the Opera live at the Orpheum Theatre. The production was too fabulous for words.

MayMy best friends graduated from high school. Crazy how time goes by.

June
Got to live with Nicole for two weeks while my family traveled around the country going to weddings and getting proposed to. Also, Shakespeare Camp began in late June.

July
TAC Summer Program. I wish I could relive those two weeks exactly how they happened. So happy to be returning there for college next year!

August

South Dakota Honor Choir, though exhausting and a bit much right after TAC, was still an unforgettable musical experience. Good ol' Randy Stenson and the IlluminAltos.

September

After my last Broomtree, I started senior year. Which I wish were already done.

October
Mom and I went to Germany, stayed in a picturesque abbey, ate delicious food, spent time with my now-professed aunt, and witnesses the miracle at the tomb of St. Walburga. So much history. So much Catholic. So much joy.

NovemberNaNoWriMo 2016. Wrote a novel which I changed into a novella after meeting word count quota. Kind of a tragic story but beautiful in its own way. Also, official acceptance from TAC plus a free t-shirt.

December
The twins came home from college and we went on The Bestie Roadtrip. Great music, laughs, conversations, hugs, food, everything. The ultimate road trip.

So yeah, 2016 was pretty cool for my life. I can't wait to see what 2017 brings my way!

Nina's Profession!

Mom and I were so incredibly lucky to attend my aunt's First Profession of vows in Eichstätt, Germany this weekend! It was a fantastic and unforgettable trip, and I'm so thankful to everyone who made it possible for us to go. 

Our first flight was from Sioux Falls to Chicago. It's always fun to see the patchwork of farm fields from the airplane window. Seeing Chicago and the shore of Lake Michigan was cool, too.

We had a short layover in O'Hare, then boarded an Aer Lingus plane for the eight-hour flight to Dublin.

As we landed around five in the morning, we didn't get to see Dublin in daylight until the way back. 

The Dublin airport was very nice and we enjoyed the quiet and wifi until we boarded the next plane for Munich.

A beautiful sunrise from above the clouds.

After landing in Munich, we had to get a bus to the Munich train station, then hopped on two trains to reach the small town of Eichstätt. I took a panorama at the train station.

We stayed in the abbey guesthouse, and our rooms were beautiful. We were glad to take showers and change before eating dinner at the abbey.

The beds were super comfortable, especially after a night on an airplane!
 

We enjoyed the abundance of Baroque art at the abbey, including the famous Madonna found in many Bavarian towns. 

The entryway of the guesthouse had some beautiful things on the walls.

All the old doors were impressive. If I had thought to photograph more of them I could've made a post of just the dozens of doors.

Nina's profession was a beautiful ceremony, which took place in the small chapel of the abbey. Five priests concelebrated and we had front row pews. Besides us there were several oblates who attended.

The official photo of Sr. Martina OSB with her black veil.

After breakfast we were allowed a tour of the cloistered gardens, which were breathtaking, but I don't have any pictures of it. Check on mom's blog for those.

These doors lead to the upstairs and downstairs of the crypt, which contains the famous tomb of St. Walburga.

The stripy doors lead into a tunnel to the abbey courtyard.

We spent a good amount of time in the crypt, praying by the tomb of St. Walburga. Every year from around mid-October until her feast day in February, miraculous holy oil leaks from her tomb. There have been countless miraculous healings brought about by this holy oil, and the tomb has become a pilgrimage site. 

There isn't a set date that the oil starts flowing in October, so every day a sister goes down to check. On the day of Nina's profession, the sister discovered that the oil had begun flowing that day. On the day it starts the sisters go down into the crypt at night and sing the Te Deum. Normally this a strictly private affair, but Mother Francisca invited us to go with them. After singing the Te Deum, one sister climbed up and opened the door, and we went up one by one to see the oil that had collected in the bowls and condensed on the door.

The underground part of the crypt. 

On the upper level are statues of St. Walburga, her two saint brothers Willibald and Winibald, and their parents. The walls are covered with pictures commemorating healings or pilgrimages to the site.

They open this gold door to collect the oil.

Downstairs, the ceiling has pictures with bible verses involving oil.

I took several photos of other artwork. There are paintings everywhere in the abbey. This Madonna and St. Benedict hang on the wall of one of the guest parlors.

These are in another guest parlor, where we had breakfast with two priests on Sunday morning.

The building is centuries old, so the walls are very thick!

On Sunday after breakfast, Mom and I walked down into town to see some of Eichstätt. We visited the same museum and cathedral that we had gone to two years ago.

The door of the museum, which is the ruins of the old church, was wide open, so we just walked in.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Part of the floor was lined with tombs, so that part was roped off. 

Tombs in more detail

The ceiling had coats of arms, presumably belonging to Bavarian families.

We walked out through this door into one of the many cute plazas.

St. Willibald is the patron of Eichstätt, so there are statues of him everywhere.

The we went by the gorgeous bridge that we remembered from our last visit.

Later that day, Nina took us into the big church of the abbey, in which she would have had her Profession, but there was a diaconate ordination the same day. 

The abbey was established around 1035, but the Swedes came and destroyed Eichstätt during the Thirty Years War. The sisters begged them not to destroy the church, which they were in the process of restoring, so the church is the only building that remained intact, and they were able to complete the Baroque restoration and rebuild the rest of the abbey.

Every corridor of the abbey was a work of art and a history lesson. 

The local castle/bishop's residence, which is now a museum.

It was an amazing visit and we had such a fun time with the sisters, partaking of their otherworldly lifestyle for a weekend. We were sad to go but glad to return home.

Approaching Ireland.

Taking off from Chicago at 10:45pm.

We returned home at 1:30am after waking up at 5am in German time, and had a wonderful night's sleep. We'll never forget this trip, and I hope I'll be able to visit Nina and Eichstätt again soon!