LAST BLAST!

The Last Blast means the last day of school for the 2013-2014 school year at All Saints Catholic School. It is a long standing tradition at the school.

The day began with the 4th quarter awards assembly. The Kindergarten class also held their graduation ceremony at the assembly.

One Kindergartener also received a state award for her art work for "Keep Christ in Christmas" sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. The other two winners shown in the photo are brothers.

 

After the awards assembly parents set up the 8 games in the parking lot. Grs. 6th and 7th were the leaders of their teams consisting of students from all grades.

"Let the games begin!"

Water Sponge Race-who can get the most water in the sponge and squeezed out into the other bucket. The kids loved getting wet at this one.

This PreSchooler was having fun just getting wet.

 A new game for the students was "Kick the Shoe" 

They had lots of fun trying to kick their shoe farther than anyone else on their team.

 

Hopscotch is an old time favorite game which many students had never played and loved the challenge of it.

 

Stack the Cups-all students loved this!

Reminded me of "Minute to Win It"

 

The "Egg Race" -plastic Easter eggs on plastic spoons-were used for the race. These preschoolers knew how to do this one. The boy kept looking bad to see how close his competition was. He did win!

While we played volunteers grilled our lunch.

 

Hoola Hoop Competition

 At last lunch time.

 Ketchup or mustard anyone?

A picnic outside with our beautiful blue skies.

11:15am back into the classrooms while parents cleaned up.
11:30am Summer Vacation officially began for the students.

Children-the future of our Church

Children, especially those that attend a Catholic School, are the future ministers and leaders of the Catholic Church. At All Saints Catholic School, our students are being prepared to take an active part in the church, especially the liturgy.

At our last two school Masses, at our parish-Our Lady of the Mountains, our students who take piano lessons played the piano for our school Masses.

Pictured above are the three students who played songs for our children's Mass.

They were applauded by the parishioners and students at the Mass for having the courage to play and for the congregation and lead the school choir. Many piano players enjoy playing the piano for themselves or their family but are too afraid to play in church, especially if the choir is up front.

It is so great to see each of the pianists helping each other out as they took their turn playing their part of the Mass.  I simply figured out an introduction for them to play for the choir, told them when to start and then they always looked to me towards the end of the song to see if I put up fingers of the next verse to sing or gave the sign to stop at the end of this.

 

 Our students also learn how to be a lector at the school and Sunday Masses. Our students - a 3rd and 6th grader-read for Easter Sunday Mass with an overflowing crowd in the church.  Our pastor, Fr. Ariel always says, " You can tell a child who was educated in a Catholic School when they get up to a microphone and automatically adjusts it to their height."

Here are our proud church pianists, loving their ministry of playing for the school choir.

Natalie also played for the 5:00pm Saturday night Mass with a choir.

Natalie's mom helped her out through the Mass and stayed by her to give her confidence and reassurance.

Natalie loves playing for Mass. She was also very relieved to have her first weekend Mass over, especially after she made it through the whole Gloria.

First Communion-Fire-Ground Breaking

Have you ever had a very super busy weekend with all kinds of things happening?
Take a look at last weekend - here in Sierra Vista at Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church.

• Saturday morning, April 26th at 10:00am we had First Holy Communion. A most special day in all of our lives who have received this sacrament. I bet you can remember your First Holy Communion! I can. I received my first ever perm to my hair. I always had the "buster brown"  short and straight hair style until First Holy Communion and my mom dropped me off at the beauty shop for the first time ever in my life. I was terrified and when I saw the finished product I was horrified of all the tight frizzy curls. That was the last perm I ever got. 
• This past Saturday my students, who I prepared for First Holy Communion, along with those in the CCD program created memories of their own. Here is my little group with Fr. Ariel Lustan, our pastor. 

  

  This is the 1st time I got to be taller than the pastor (the photographer had me stand on a block.) It is also the first time I realized that I have a new look to my hair-pure gray -just like my father's. Not bad against the colored background. 

  
  

  
  

  After First Holy Communion, I worked with the parish secretary to decorate our parish hall for the pastor's big birthday party. When finished, I went outside to get the school mail by the  large row of mailboxes together on Yaqui Street. I looked up into the mountains at the end of our dead-end road and there before me was a very large white cloud of smoke. I was shocked! I called Fr. Ariel to tell him about it. I then said, " I better call 911!" I did and she told me it is a fire on Post (Fort Huachuca). 
• I didn't take pictures of the first large cloud of smoke I saw because of the very strong winds. I had to have one hand on the veil at all times. I also was too busy and scared to think of taking pictures. 
  

  

  Taken from our parking lot as the sun began to set and the smoke began to billow up.

  
  
  
  
  

  

  Smokey Sky! We were worried, if the fire got to the blimp that monitors the border between us and Mexico for illegal travel and trade;filled with helium, if touched by the fire, it would be gone and the fire would really flame up. It was way too windy to put it up in the sky away from the danger of fire.

  
  

  
  
  

  

  Leaving the school and parish at 7:00pm looking down Yaqui Street to the fire/smokey cloud.

  
  

The smoke got worse before it got any better. Before long the sheriff dept. arrived to our parish hall to issue us a pre-evacuation notice. It told us what personal belongings to put together, have a place picked out to evacuate to if needed and if they come back again and say "Evacuate Now" we would have 5-10 minutes to get out of the area.  The 5:00pm Mass was about to begin so this pre-evacuation notice was read. Mass went on and I kept watching the smoke cloud get larger and the wind get more powerful. As I stood outside our hall, I held on to my veil and the railing as the wind was blowing way too hard not too.As guests started to arrive for the pastor's birthday party and as parish employees traveled to the parish to pack up files and computer files in case of evacuation that is when we found out the sheriff was blocking off our street-Yaqui. No one could come down it. After communion I went into the sanctuary to give the pastor the latest update. He told me to get the Deacon and talk to the sheriff as to what to do for his birthday party-cancel or go on. 

• In talking to the sheriff at about 6:00pm he said the fire is contained but with this wind it could start up again. He said, if it was him, he wouldn't be anywhere near here. 

 

• In telling the pastor this, he canceled his party and rescheduled it for all on Monday night. 

The weekend still wasn't over. Sunday, the 27th after the 7:30am Mass, the pastor and five other parishioners broke ground for the parish rectory. But before that happened, the Student Council conducted their schedule bake sale after two of the Masses--

The pastor asked six of us to dig in with hard hats and golden shovels. I was blest to be one of the six. My first ever experience at this as well as the pastor's first.

After Mass, we all walked to the parish land behind our church where the first rectory for our parish will be built-this August is the 23rd anniversary of the founding of our parish.

Fr. Ariel first blessed the land. Notice the 6 gold shovels waiting to go into action. 

Such beautiful blue skies where last night there was so much white smoke!

The six chosen represented: 1) The contractor, 2) Finance Council 3) Pastoral Council 4) The Pastor 5) Myself-principal of the school -"The Daughter of the Parish" as Fr. Ariel told all and 6) a student at All Saints Catholic School-the future generation of our church.

A weekend I won't ever forget! I thank God for the firefighters and especially the HotShots who really put their life on the line when they fight these fires.