Meeting Families at WorldMeetingofFamilies

I’m finally getting the chance to reflect on our big road trip last week to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. Arma Dei: Equipping Catholic Families was a vendor in the Expo Hall, sharing a booth with our awesome new friends, the Little Douglings!

With three of our five kids in high school or University(!), we decided to take only the two youngest…and we had a great time!

While we thoroughly enjoyed tracking Pope Francis and getting to know him better through his translated talks and homilies…and eagerly watching the news coverage of him kissing babies and meeting so many people,

I think my favorite part of #WorldMeetingofFamilies

…was meeting families!

We were so thankful to meet up with wonderful Catholic families…being hosted by them, sharing a booth with them, meeting them in our booth and getting reacquainted with them in our travels!

It was a pleasure meeting up with Xhonane of Familia Católica. She graciously hosted us and took us to Mass with her family!

She even sent us a picture of her family playing the Super Saints…because we forgot to take pictures of our families playing the Super Saints while we were visiting!

We then met up with another one of our favorite families! Paola and Larry of Emmanuel Books hosted us, helped us and encouraged us as we began setting up at the World Meeting of Families!

Incidentally…we played the Super Saints with their awesome family as well! Yes, I think Bridget won again.

We were delighted to get to know the Douglas family… as we shared a booth in the Expo Hall of #WorldMeetingofFamilies. Their awesome family with 10 kids 12 and under joyfully inspires everyone they meet!

Did you see their awesome books?

I look forward to getting our families together. They live only 40 minutes away…up here in Canada!

Here are some great people we met in our booth at the World Meeting of Families…

and here’s a picture of Bill and the kids acting goofy behind our booth at the World Meeting of Families.

On our way home, we managed to catch the Denz family before they left to attend the Papal Mass with St Gemma’s Catholic Pilgrimages! They are wearing the shirts Kelly and I designed…featuring Kelly’s Pope Francis! Close to 180 people were wearing these shirts at the Papal Mass!

So nice to see Mike and Sue and Maria…first time since Rome a year ago!

While we were disappointed that the World Meeting of Families Expo was closed a day early…and we were also unable to stick around for the Festival of Families and the Papal Mass…we were delighted to watch the coverage on TV!

The closest we got to Pope Francis on this trip was this awesome booth banner…but I feel blessed to relive the special Papal Audience I attended last year while on my Rome Pilgrimage!