The Ducote Family: Joseph's First Holy Communion

Monday, September 23, 2019

Joseph's First Holy Communion

Joseph's First Communion came on a busy weekend with Rich having class, Ella having a soccer tournament!, Mother's Day and Nani and Poppa being out of town but we were able to mange all of the other obligations and celebrate Joseph and all of his hard work these past two years in religious education class (church school as we call it) and take this step in his Catholic faith. We are so proud of him.

His First Communion took place at San Rafael Catholic Church on May 11th, 2019 at 10:00 a.m. Joseph and I had to be there at 8:30 but it was so fun seeing the class come together and all of the kids looking so special and being so excited. The ceremony came together really nicely and it was a beautiful morning. Joseph read one of the prayer petitions and he did great. I am so thankful that I was his teacher for the past two years-I am sure he didn't love it every week having me there but I'd say overall he definitely did and it was really special for both of us. I am so proud of the boy he is and who he is becoming.

At first he acted as if he didn't want to dress up for it, but once he saw the outfit come together I think he was pretty excited about how grown up and handsome he looked! We couldn't have agreed more!

He was taking selfies on the way to the church!

One of his best buddies, TJ, also made his First Communion so that was really special for both of our families.

Rich left Ella's soccer game, leaving her there with friends, and brought Julia and Charlotte to the mass so we were thankful they were able to be there. Immediately following the service they rushed back to the soccer fields so that Ella wasn't there for too long by herself. Joseph and I came back home, changed and then we met them at the fields and were able to see Ella's last game. They ended up losing which was a bummer, but it actually worked out better for us since we were then able to come home, and have Joseph open gifts before we went to Corvette Diner to celebrate.
He received a Bible and some money from Nonna and Pop Pop.

He received a baseball necklace with a cross on it from Nani and Poppa.

And other thoughtful gifts and cards from family.

We met up with everyone at Corvette Diner at 4:00 and got lucky and only had a 20 minute wait for a party of 20!! We took over 2 large tables in the back room and it worked out perfectly. Uncle JP and Aunt Carol were at their beach house in Mission Beach so we invited them to join us and we were so excited when they were able to make it! We joked around all night that they were stand ins for Nani and Poppa since they couldn't be here as they were on my mom's 70th birthday cruise in Europe and we know was hard for them to miss this!! Linz and Paul were at Lindsays' work event for the night, but Finn was spending the night with us so we had their family represented at least. Lynn, TJ and Isabella Bestafka joined us, too, since Tom was out of town and they dint' have any family in town for TJ's First Communion, so that made it extra fun for Joseph, too!

The kids table!