Mass with the Pope - truly an accidental tourist thing

Just in case you didn't know, Nancy, Susan and I  spent four days in Rome and four days in London last week. You will see photos from our trip in the next few days. I will start with this video from the second day of the trip. We truly were surprised when we entered Vatican City on Sunday morning around 11:30 to see 50,000+ people in the piazza at St. Peter's Basilica. We soon realized (by the massive amounts of people and the video feed of we thought was the pope on several 'jumbo video boards') that we had walked in on a mass being said by the pope.  As it turned out, the pope was sainting (?) three people at that service.  Even though we were a long way from the pope who was right outside the front doors of the church, it was a wonderful surprise to see the pageantry of the event.  There were about 60+ priests who gave communion and we did receive communion when one of the priests came to where we were standing.  At one point in the service, a 'crazy person' somehow crawled up on top of the large columns that surround the piazza (open space or square) and made his way to just above the video board on the right side of my video shot.  He had what we thought was a bible and burned it during the mass. The security did not shoot him or lasso him - as that would have been the only way to get to him since he was standing on a ledge. Anyway, all ended well as the security let him burn the bible. He finally crawled back over the ledge to waiting security when the mass was over.

Happy Birthday Jody - a dollar short and a day late

In honor of Jody's birthday on October 2, enjoy this video of her daughter Leah. Thanks Grandma Debbie for sending it to me.  The video is of Leah eating breakfast.  And yes, eating breakfast is enough to get you on the blog.  Make sure you have the audio turned up to here Leah's vocal solo.