Day two of our adventure turned out to be even more exciting than the first!Just before lunch, we met up with the Vandermeers – my dad’s sister, her husband, and their the three daughters. I love all of their girls and they feel like sisters to me. We all travelled together to a place called Cascading Falls, where we ate a picnic lunch, and then walked to the Falls with two wandering dogs that followed us around like tour guides. It was a beautiful place.

After the falls, we drove to the Westminster Abbey -a functioning monastery for monks. In this monastary, visitors are not allowed to wear shorts -which was a problem because my dad and two brothers were all in shorts. We figured the boys would be ok, but dad needed a solution. He ended up taking his sweater and wrapping it around his legs like some sort of tie-on skirt. Needless to say, it was hilarious.

The Abbey was beautiful and stunning. 

Monk with DVDS. How cool is that?!

Afterwards we went to another part of the Monastary where we met a very friendly monk who began a long conversation with my dad. He is a priest and a teacher of their high school for boys. He was very passionate about “his boys” and agreed with dad about the importance of a father-figue and discipleship. After a while, dad and him decided to do a swap: he would give us something from the high school in  exchange for a Malachi Man DVD set. That is how we all -everybody that followed him to the school dorm, including my cousins and aunt- all ended up with matching Saint Benedict shirts from the monastary! Like, is that cool or is that cool! Afterwards he took us to his office and played us some of the Psalms on a beautiful harp! Being in the monastary where these monks were giving up everything and sacrificing their lives fore Jesus was convicting. It can be so easy to get distracted with worldly things instead of focusing on Jesus.

Aterwards we met up with another Vandermeer cousin and his fiancée for another picnic dinner . After dinner and some hanging out at his place, my family went back to our other friends to spend the night while I slept over with the girls.

So it was an awesome day!! Sorry this post is so long, but I didn’t want to leave anything out!

Kaitlyn -on behalf of the Snyder clan ☺