December Greetings, Merry Christmas

Half Polish, half German here. My Grandfather's older siblings were born in Poland.

How's that for Uncanny Intuition?

I'm currently corresponding with someone in the old country. We share the same last name (well, until the Ellis Island official changed mine). His family tree is on the way, so I'll try to find the link between us. Thanks to the LDS database, I have tons of names from the century-plus before my family emigrated in 1881.

When my dad passed away 20 years ago, I picked up where all his genealogical research left off. Unfortunately, most of it was in error. So I started over and eventually tracked it down to the ship they sailed on and where the hometown was, as well as all the members of the family.

There's an old story that they left Poland in order to avoid the Kaiser's military draft. They said they were going to a wedding in America, leaving their cobbler shop behind, and said they'd be right back. Possibly true. I found a document where they registered with the police in their port of departure, using the correct names, except for the patriarch's first name. Seems like the old man was covering his tracks.

I also discovered the first of my line to be born in America. Even though his small group of descendants had the same "Ellis Island" name, they lost track of the larger family when they moved away from Chicago. Until I uncovered them, both sides had no idea the other existed. I had the pleasure of spending an evening with the Windy City clan while on a business trip.

Are you using genealogy dot com?

Did everything through LDS libraries. Hours and hours searching through microfiche rolls. It was essentially free, except for postage for resources ordered from Salt Lake City. In my experience back then, websites tended to have databases that were built up from the customers themselves. In other words, garbage in - garbage out. I'm kind of old school, anyway. Like Indiana Jones (at least the first three movies).

Held our outpost Christmas party tonight. We won't meet again until after the new year. Our cold weather camp will be soon after the new year, but with the kind of weather we've been having, we may need to head north to get cold weather unless it changes soon. Thinking about finding a place a little north that gets regular snow in January and turn our cold weather camp into a legitimate snow camp. I think that would be a blast for the boys. Anyone have much experience camping in snow?

I did it once when I was in Scouts and once in the Army. Both very different experiences, the latter was on basic training so not something I would like to repeat. So cold and tired.

I took my Rangers out on New Year's Eve in Wisconsin for a "Survival Campout" (No tents, just sleeping bags, ground pads, and tarps to build your own shelters).

They grabbed every blue tarp that we had covered the trailer with and every bungi cord and made the darndest blue hooch that I have ever seen. There were about 6 or 7 of them and they were awake, partying, and eating chocolate bars in there until about midnight.

At about 1:00 AM, I peeked in there to see how they were doing. Amidst the candy bar wrappers, they were all in their sleeping bags, and all on top of each other with their heads sticking out in all directions.

Looked like a pile of kittens.

Our weather up here has been unusually warm in the '60s after midnight.

10" of snow overnight. We don't camp in it. We live with it.

Pray for us. Seems like there's a stomach bug making it's way around... I hate those things!

Will do.

First snowfall of the year today. It was so pretty to watch it fall. Too bad it didn't last, it never does around here. Still cold out so maybe tomorrow might be white for a few hours anyway.

It doesn't stay snowy all winter where you are?

No I don't live in an igloo..... I live in a rainforest. Vancouver Island is known as the "tropics" of Canada, just without the heat. Most of the precipitation that we get is rain, but if we want snow I drive 40 mins south of town and we have an awesome world class ski hill with no snow making machines needed. During the summer you could go skiing in the morning on the glacier and then go swimming in the ocean in the afternoon.

Now that sounds cool!

Went Christmas shopping last Saturday for my wife... :evil: Malls are nothing more than a necessary evil, and had I been more forward thinking, it wouldn't even be necessary at all! BUT, I wasn't forward thinking and had to bite the bullet and go shopping in all that mess.

Anyway, looking forward to giving gifts now that I've actually gotten her something. It was easy for the kids... She's a little harder (read: "more expensive") to shop for, but I made it!

It's always nice to see all the Christmas cards come in from friends and family members. Even got a nice gift in the mail today from an out of state friend. Merry Christmas to me! Does everyone else hang up all the Christmas cards somewhere that come in, or are we the only sappy ones that do that?

Our cards get taped up as well. Our incoming card "decoration" gets smaller every year. They come from older and older friends and relatives. A favorite aunt passed away this week.

11 pm and I pick up a sister-in-law at the airport in 2 hours. Why do people take these ridiculous late-night flights just to save $20? I'm a morning person. I'm paying the difference next time.

Ok.... I got sucked into an Amazon original show called "The Man in the High Castle". Anybody else see it? We had watched four episodes over the past several weeks, and then continued it tonight when my youngest went to bed. We ended up getting sucked into the story and watched the rest of the season tonight (it's almost 3am now) and I have NO IDEA what just happened... What on earth???

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating the watching of this show because it does have some inappropriate material in it. But if you have seen it, tell me what the heck happened.

joecool wrote:Our cards get taped up as well. Our incoming card "decoration" gets smaller every year.  

I made a comment to my wife the other day that I didn't think we had gotten as many cards this year. I don't think our people are dying off though...

I'm thinking it's either the economy, it's becoming less popular to send "real" mail, or I've ticked too many people off.

It can be cyclic.

I'm a "last minute crammer". I maintained a 3.2 average in college by slacking through most of the semester, then cramming for mid-terms and finals.

I was also a Vietnam Veteran going through school on the G.I. Bill, so there was a certain level of "Social Decorum" that I was expected to maintain (watch "Animal House").

Same-same for Christmas Cards. Friday was supposed to be my "deadline day". I got most of my mailed cards done, but that left the cards for the "pigeon holes" at church for the other members.

Problem was that I came down with the stomach flu on Saturday, and am just now recovering. So the members that gave me cards and didn't get anything back may (rightfully) think that I am a stinker. There are no more services prior to Christmas, so there is no sense in putting in cards, now.

That stomach bug gets around! Hit several people in our church including my wife. I HATE stomach bugs!!!! I think I'd rather have anything else given a choice. Well, that sore throat where you can't even swallow without coming out of your skin is rough too. Come to think of it, I don't like many of the possibilities.

Are you back to health now, Claymore?

Today is going to be my first venture outside.

On Saturday, our two sons arrived from Wisconsin for Christmas.

Last night, they started coming down with it.

Oh no! The gift that keeps on giving....