The Grotto
The National Sanctuary of Our Sorrowful Mother

Cheryl and I went to the Grotto last Saturday to meet up with our good friend Mariah Harris!I had never been there before. It is the one of most beautiful places that I have had the pleasure of discovering. In it's 62 acres, there is a Catholic Shrine, Meditation Center, Catholic Church, Servite monostary and a botanical garden containing bronze plaques of the Mysteries, St. Joseph's life, and almost life size wood scuptures carved from Italy! The Grotto is a non-profit Oregon corporation, supported solely by the proceeds of its gift shop and by donations.

My favorite place either had to be the church( which cheryl and I thought looked like a condemned asylum from the side at first) or the Meditation Chapel!

The Church is Beautiful. It is made of grey brick and has a old europian feel. It is small and cozy...I think that the fire marshall notification said it would hold about 165 people! It also has two ornate mosaic pictures along with a lot of beautiful painting on the altar and on the ceiling(maybe). The Mosaics were beautiful though!

The Meditation chapel was amazing! It was fairly modern. It was up on the Cliffs, and had windows along that entire side! You could see the airport and across the river to Washington! They had about six leather chairs( I love leather chairs!) sitting in a row facing the windows. Cheryl said that we should just pay the $3.50 and go up there to study! There was also a gap in the middle between the windows where a statue of Mary holding the Baby Jesus stood incased in glass. These statues weren't like anything that I had ever seen. They looked 99.9% real! They had real hair and there hands and feet were perfect. I had to do a double take twice to come to the conclusion that they were infact not real people. I was waiting for one to move...no joke! The picture doesn't do them justice!

Here is a link to there website:http://www.thegrotto.org/

I'm really glad that Cheryl dragged me there. It was grey and cloudy, but it still held so much beauty! I really want to go back when the sun is shining!! Plus they were putting up Christmas lights when we were there...Oh yeah!