A Heathen No More

On Saturday, we had Magda's christening at Jfer's church. Compared to a Catholic wedding, a christening is a piece of cake. We only had to go to one preparation class that was attended by a ton of other parents.

We had a big contingent of guests, mostly Jfer's family, but also a bunch of mine, including my parents who flew in for the occasion. There were three other babies at the ceremony, but it moved pretty quickly and was very low key and the priest encouraged people to take as many photographs as they wanted. Magda did fine most of the time, though she did not appreciate the cold water. Baptized or not, I have not noticed any changes in her sleeping patters; so that much for the "oil of exorcism's" power...

The reception after the baptism was a blast. We had reserved the "Cardinal Room" at Buca di Beppo (the "Pope Room" with the disconcerning torso of John Paul II on a Lazy Susan being, alas, too small for our group) and completely filled it up with over 30 guests. The food a Buca is OK, but we had way too much of it. We did seem to have estimated the wine much better than the food and the evening got nicely loud and boisterous. It was great having both families there (luckily the Karls don't need much of a reason to get together).

On Sunday we hosted a brunch followed by a nice walk in Walnut Creek Park. All of Jfer's folks bailed on the park and missed out on a very pleasant excursion -- makes me glad that my Czech relatives aren't a bunch of lazy bums :-)