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Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Wind, Planes and Español

This past week has been eventful (for me)... For one thing, my nephew's feet tripled (at least) in size!Well... his shoes did. It'll be awhile yet before he can fill his daddy's shoes but might as well start early.
Also, my good friend Kyle booked a plane ticket to come down for a weekend next month.At least this time we won't have to watch the Seahawks lose again. Instead we are going to a watch the Wranglers beat Victoria, B.C. at a hockey game.

My Spanish classes started again last Tuesday and so far are going pretty well, despite me not so much as glancing at my Spanish book for the past 6 weeks."Here we speak Spanish." Well, sort of.

And I signed up for some training with a personal trainer at our new gym! I used to work out regularily until my little bout with hypoglycemia (hypo= low, glycemia= blood sugar). After that working out would cause my bloodsugar to pummet and me to not feel good! Working with a good trainer is hopefully going to help me strengthen again while keeping my heart rate at an easy-to-work-with level.

All this going on amidst crazy weather! Saturday was absolutely perfect... sunny, blue, clear and hovering around 60. The rest of the weekend has been chilly, dark, rainy and very windy, causing realtors to reschedule jobs at least twice already.

And that's my week up to date.

Monte Carlo fire

I usually keep my news I'm reading to the "News I'm Reading" section of my blog but this was the excitement of the day (and probably of my weekend).

Msn link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22844444/?GT1=10755

Las Vegas channel 3 news link:

http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=7774746

The fire made international news as well:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7210121.stm

Here's a direct link to the video:

http://www.kvbc.com/global/video/popup/pop_player.asp?ClipID1=2132039&h1=Monte%20Carlo%20burns%20-%2011%3A15%20-%2011%3A40%20am&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=1158367&LaunchPageAdTag=News&activePane=info&playerVersion=1&hostPageUrl=http%3A//www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp%3FS%3D7774746&rnd=10972740

Birthday

Yesterday evening we had the family over for birthday dinner and cake.Of course the kiddos had to have their portraits taken... Camden: Bree-bree: And my favorite one (thank you UncleErrol): Carter helped me blow out the candles... While Bree watched with Uncle Kevin.

Thank you everyone for a great birthday!

21

Not sure if I'm ready to be 21 yet but it came today anyway. Here are some pics from the good old days that I dug up. :)

Here're Bryan, Jeff, Kevin, and I when I was about 2 months old. Bryan would be about 11, Jeff 9 and Kevin 5.

Kevin and I being goofy when I was maybe 2. Note the brown carpet. Gotta love the 80s.The family (minus Mom taking the picture) on our favorite family vacation... Disneyland! We used to drive down to Disneyland from Washington a lot when we were little. I was about 2 in this pic.Here are all the cousins except Uncle Ray's three; Derek, Loren, Blake, Michael, Kevin, Bryan, Jeff, Heidi and me, and Kelly.This is my Grandpa's birthday... I think it was his 96th or 97th which would make me 2 or 3.A family picture with Mom's cousin, her husband and their daughters Lori and Melanie.A family portrait with the parents and brothers... I think I was about 5 in this picture... I remember this very clearly. The grass was itchy and I was afraid of the camera and so refused to smile. My cousin Loren was behind the camera and he had to crack some puppet joke so I wouldn't cry. I still look pretty grumpy, though. A bedtime story when I was 3 or 4. I was a big time thumbsucker. Jeff's shirt and glasses are classic! And here's Bree... she hung out and had a girl's day with me today. We went to the bookstore... the pet store was on the agenda, too, but when I asked her if she would rather see the animals or take a nap she opted for "night-night".

Camden Time

Camden came over to hang out with his Auntie Kari for a couple of hours today. First we had some tummy time... Then we had some boppy time...
And then we had some screaming time... and finally some sleeping time!

And that was our day.

Seattle

My trip to Seattle was so much fun but definitely reminded me (as if I'd forgotten) how much I LOVE the sunshine. It was a beautiful weekend but the day I left was gloomy, dreary and rainy and made me feel the same. The drive to the airport was scary but Kirsten handled it well, despite rain mixed with snow, the occasional hydroplaning moment, and busses completely obscuring our vision by dashing through big puddles.
It was a great weekend.
If only the Seahawks had won...

On the flight up it was clear and beautiful... We had a great view of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I had the whole row so I stretched out, got comfortable and snapped some pics.

me and my sis

Kyle and I watched the Seahawks game at Afly's pizza. Kirsten doesn't care much about football ("Isn't there a guy named Hassemburger on the team?") so she went shopping.

Kirsten and I had time to kill at the airport. She had 12 pennies and I had 12 quarters (although I'm pretty sure she's way richer than me) so we played checkers on the Starbucks table.

Las Vegas

Thought I would share some pics from a job I did today...This one I just stitched as an experiment it to see how it would look as a panorama. I didn't take the pictures with the intention of stitching them so there are some differences in the shadow colors but it turned out okay otherwise.

Today

A beautiful day! Blue skies and warm (for winter). I used the heater on the way to my job and the AC on the way home 45 minutes later!

I'll leave you with a random fact for the day:

A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.

Ancestry Update

I know some of you have been wanting an update on how the genealogy research is going... I didn't work on it last month but I did compile some more pictures so I will post those for you to browse through. This post will be only from Mom's side of the family.

Grandma's side:

These are my great-grandfather's parents; my great-great grandpa and grandma, Wilhelm (later William) and Cristina Kraus (she was a Sept). He was born in Bessarabia, Russia (now part of Romania) near the Black Sea in 1853. He and his wife came to the states in 1903 (Romania was under the reign of its first king, Carol I). Their journey started on a train to Predeal, Hungary. Their passports were stamped there and then I think they went to Germany where they took this ship, the S.S. Patricia. They sailed to New York in about a month. Grandma said her dad told her how everyone the ship had tears in their eyes when they finally saw the Statue of Liberty.
As far as I know the great-greats had 4 children that died before the immigrated and brought over 7 children with them, including my great-grandpa, Johann (later changed his name to John) who was 13 at the time. Another married daughter came over later. They also had two or three more children after settling in the states. My great-grandfather's brother, Gotthold, was one of the children who immigrated, along with his twin-sister Pauline. They were 4. The family settled in North Dakota, where my Grandma was eventually born.

My great-grandfather worked in a garage in North Dakota with one of his brothers, Samuel. These are my great-grandmother's parents; the family of Joseph Jenny and Maria Weiss. They immigrated to the states in 1881. I haven't spent as much time researching them yet. I know they come from Austria and were married there around 1878. They are my great-great grandparents on Grandma's mom's side. I think the one sitting down on the far right is my great-grandmother.

This is my grandma's youngest brother John. He was in the military in Korea and later the family lost contact with him. Grandma always wondered what happened to him and through researching online I found out he's been buried in a memorial cemetary right here in Las Vegas for the past 15 years.

Grandpa's side:

Again, I only know a few hazy details about this side of the family. I haven't traced them out of the states yet (except for on Grandpa's Dad's Mom's side --follow that!-- there's a possibility of a French line). These are my great-grandmother's parents. He was always known as "Captain" Bullard but as far as I could find out from family censuses his real name was Wilson and his wife was Sophia (she was a Marshall). This photo is from a tintype, probably late 1800s.
This is my great-grandma Bessie B. She was born in 1885.This is my great-grandma's sister, Lottie. She married her cousin (her father's brother's son). They did not have any children. This is my Grandpa's dad's dad (my great-great grandfather), Robert. He was born in 1849.Great-great grandparents with their sons. They also had a daughter. These are Robert's three sons. The oldest on the right is my great-grandfather, Lewis. William is on the right and Glenn is the one standing on the chair wearing the dress (fasion has come a long way...). Here is my Grandpa (about 5 months old) and his Mom, Bessie, in 1919.
My grandpa, his parents and his sister Charlotte. My grandpa and his sister.
Which leads us down to my grandparents: