Zachariah

This is St. Stanislaus Elementary School in Cleveland. The first floor left corner (four windows) is my husband's first grade classroom. He is just finishing his tenth year teaching at St. Stan's.

Last year, one of his students was our son Zachariah. Zachariah loves reading. His sister, Lindsey, loves reading too but Dave really believes that Zachariah loves reading more than Lindsey does. Even if he is playing on the computer, he loves those action games that have themes and story lines!

The chair he is sitting in is my kids favorite chair all variety of activities. It was my Mom's and the frame is broken on one side but the kids love it for reading or sitting or when they don't feel well.

And sometimes it just gets too hard to keep that book up while you are reading it and you have to lay over the arm of the chair . . .
oh, but I'm getting to the good part . . . that Junie B. Jones . . . what an exciting read!

On Sunday, May 18, Zachariah made his first communion along with five of his classmates at the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus. St. Stanislaus is in the Slavic Village area of Cleveland. Slavic Village has really taken a beating in recent years, both literally and figuratively. If they could afford to, many of the residents would move away. However, many of the residents who have moved away from the area continue to support the church and school. When Dave first joined the staff at St. Stan's he taught one of the second grade classes. There were 42 students in second grade and 40 of them made their first communion that year. This year there are 26 students in second grade and only six are Catholic.

One of the Church's claims to fame was that a Polish born cardinal came to visit . . . shortly before he became Pope John Paul II.

It is a beautiful church and school.

Here is a picture that I took of some of the group.

Before the Mass started, Zachariah had to deal with his tie. And, no thank you, I can do it myself!

Lindsey took this pic in front of the Church doors.
And here is a pic of the main doors and front of the church. It is only a small piece of the entire campus which consists of the church, rectory, convent, elementary school and high school, filling one city block.

And here is Zachariah's GQ pic.

And finally, the official photo as taken by one of the parishioners. Zachariah is and probably always will be the smallest in his class. Of course, he is also the youngest but I don't think his age will make that big of a difference in comparing the sizes of all the kids.

It was a beautiful day. Many family and friends got to join in on this beautiful celebration!