A Wonderful Sunday

It was a wonderful Sunday. One of those days that is simply great from morning to night. We had a wonderful Church service with a really nice message and a lunch following with Communion at the end. Got to spend some nice visiting time with Sarah and the Clarks. Came home around 1:00pm and Mom and Sarah worked on genealogy while Dad and I went upstairs.

Dad set his ironing board up in the back room and ironed all his work clothes for this week while we watched a WWII film. The Heroes of Telemark, about the commando raid on the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant in Rjukan, Norway. It was filmed on location, so being able to actually see the actual places is thrilling. The real story is truly amazing and so interesting to read about. The movie did combine characters and change some parts, however, it is close enough that (if you know the story) it doesn't spoil it too much. The finale which shows the sinking of the Norsk Hydro ferry is so great. Very realistic. Dad and I had a great time watching it and discussing different aspects of the story and the war. We were having so much fun that we followed it with part of Is Paris Burning?, which is one of the all-star epic WWII films of the 1960s. Also, a very well-done film (closer to actual history than the Telemark film) and features tons of real film footage from the real insurrection of Paris. We'll have to finish this film next weekend. It was just a really fun and relaxing day.

"Sing aloud unto God our strength: make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob." - Psalm 81:1

The 3 S's Sequal - Shamrocks, Swetlands, and . . . Sunburn?!

Our St. Patrick's Day was easy and fun. We had our normal coffee in the morning and cleaned the kitchen and everything. In the afternoon, Mom and Dad went to Mansfield on a secret errand while Sarah and I decorated the backroom upstairs. I put on an opera DVD and finished making my leprechaun cutout and we hung up our Happy St. Patrick's Day sign and some shamrock garland. Can it get better than Irish decor and Joan Sutherland? :o) We finished playing Syberia I (which was absolutely wonderful! Can't wait to start Syberia II!)and after Mom and Dad got back, we watched My Wild Irish Rose which has Dennis Morgan singing a lot of Irish songs and features a wonderfully Irish finale.



Sunday, we finally made a family outing and drove up to Cleveland. (Well, Mom would say that it wasn't really Cleveland.) We went to the cemetery in North Olmsted where Uncle JD is buried. I couldn't have been happier. I have really been wanting to go see it and get a photo of his marker. It turns out that Aunt Margaret's brother and his wife are buried four spaces away. So that was fun! We also went to the cemetery where the Stubbs are buried. Took new photos of those stones and even transcribed the Alger monument which is really worn away. We had to leave because there was lots of lightening and it started to rain.

On Thursday, Mom had a slight case of cabin fever, so we decided to drive out to Belle Center (out in Logan County). I never thought that we would ever make it out there, but Mom thought it would be fun. The reason that I wanted to go is that Harold Swetland (the boy that died in Alaska during WWII) has a marker in the cemetery up there. Also, his father, mother, and grandparents are all buried there. Harold's grandfather is Truannie's brother. The cemetery was really pretty, but very sunny. Hardin and Logan Counties are so flat! All farmland and flat. The sun was out and it was very hot. We spent hours walking around and looking for the twenty FindAGrave photo requests. Found all but four and found all the ones I wanted as well. Harold, Harold's parents and grandparents, his step-father, etc. I am so happy. (Here is a photo of me next to Harold's marker. I'll do an entry later with more photos and his story.) Well, we ended up with bad cases of sunburn! Can you believe it! Sunburn in March! I feel awful!

I did get to do some more book dusting this week. I am working on the shelf units behind Sarah's chair and the wool dust is about to kill me! I thought the other books were dusty. Nothing to these! It is awful! I'll do more this week. Mom has her doctor appointment on Monday, so we'll head up to Mansfield for that. Other than that, I don't think we have any pressing plans. I am hoping to get a lot of books done. Sarah and I are also going to get in the closet under the stairs. That is a job, as it requires us to empty and move the cabinet full of sheet music. Anyway, more later!

"Thou has set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter." - Psalm 74:17

The 3 S's - Stan Hywet, Stamp Show, and Syberia

Well, well, well . . . Time flies sometimes and I haven't written a blog entry for ages. This month we have had some fun things happen. On Saturday the 3rd, we went to the McKinley club stamp show up in Canton. We love that show and haven't been there in three years. Usually it snows or is icy that weekend and we can't make it up. Well, owing to our unusual lack of seasonal precipitation this year (in other words, no snow), we made it. For part of the afternoon, Mom and the two of us left Dad there and we went to a special event at Stan Hywet (which is closed until April). They played an hour of old home movies and had three granddaughters of the Seiberlings come and share stories about the house and their family. It was really fun. Sarah and I love it! They are going to sell the disc of movies this year in the gift shop, so Sarah and I already have plans to by it. :o) Can't wait until it opens!

My book dusting is going well, but rather slowly. We have had so many pretty, sunny days that we have been running different places. So I am a bit behind. Need to finish before the weather turns Spring. Hopefully this week I'll get some more done. I have several audiobooks to listen to, so I am all set!

A wonderful thing. We found a Church that we are going to attend. The Clarks called us and told us about a nice church they found in Danville (of all place! Does anything good come from Danville?). So we went ad it was lovely. Everything nice. So, for right now, we are going to go there. I couldn't be happier!

St. Patrick's Day is approaching (actually, I think that it is practically here!) and I worked this week on making a little leprechaun cut-out decoration. I am almost done, just have to make his face and trim for his jacket. He is looking really cute.

Sarah and I got the coolest computer game this week. One that we are actually both playing separately, but at the same time. Syberia I & II. Right now we are only halfway through Syberia I. Man, is it fun! The graphics are so well done and pretty. The voices are great, the play is fun and challenging. So we are really enjoying it. Here is a screenstill of the library in a German university. Of course, I really enjoyed the library!


Mom found out last weekend that she has low blood sugar, so we are trying to adjust our diet and times of eating (more important than that diet, really) and she got a doctors appointment for a week from Monday. Praying that it will just be a temporary stress-induced thing.

The weather today is very, very grey. Hoping that it clears, though. Day before yesterday, it was beautiful. Then we had one of the worst rain/thunder/lightening storms ever that night! Sad to say, but I think Spring is almost here. If it clears, I think we are going to go run some errands.

Mom has been working on FindAGrave still. I switched for a little while from local graves to inputting memorials for French Resistance people. Pretty fun. I think I have done eleven so far. How many French websites can I translate? ;o) Finding out where some of them are buried is a job in itself! I really like doing it, though.

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." - Matt. 18:20

Our Darling Little Maid Mintie

Aramintie

29 Sept 2006 - 25 Feb 2012

Today, we lost our little Mintie-Fish. We were blessed with our little darling's presence for five and a half wonderful years. She was born on Sept 29th, 2006, in the dining room closet. She was the first of the babies of Olivia's last litter to pop into this world. She was the cutest little thing from her first appearance. She was a very dark tortie who looked so much like her mother that it was disconcerting. She had her mother's round face, her mother's buff chin, her mother's round legs, and even her mother's three buff toes on her back foot. It took us about a week to pick the perfect names for the three surviving litter-mates. We debated on Arwen and Tinkerbell before settling on Aramintie. She fit the name perfectly and acquired several nicknames over the years. Maid Mintie, The Mintie-Fish, A Baramintie-Fish, Little Mama, and Mintiekins.

Aramintie was the cutest little kitty you've ever seen. Everything about her was round. She had perfect little peppermint toes and the roundest golden eyes that could look right through you. She was a little, live stuffed animal. Cuddly, soft, round, and wonderful. She didn't like being held, but she eventually got to like it enough that she would be pushing away from you as much as she could, all the while purring like a little motor boat. She never ate wet food, only kibbles. From a baby kitten she never cared.

Her favorite toys were little fur balls, which she would have full-blown wild-manzies with, stuffing them in her mouth as much as she could and growling away at it until she vanquished her little toy. Catnip was a wonderful thing, which made her totally nutsy, causing her to roll around the floor, going from one toy to the next. She never meowed, not even as a baby. However, she had no trouble growling. Mostly at toys while she was playing. You could here the low sound in another room. She usually played alone, and didn't require too much companionship. The other kitties, particularly the mama's babies, thought that she was there mama when she was sleeping. You would go upstairs and find Avis or Manly or Frodo cuddled up against the sleeping Mintie-Fish, and you would know that they thought she was Olivia. :o) Aramintie also loved to play with the laser toy. She would be a dark shadow zooming around the rooms after the little red dot. She was really amazingly fast and rarely ever missed it.

Aramintie always loved another kitty to cuddle with her, although she never really sought companionship herself. Her human involvement consisted of a little frenzy every day around 2:30pm. Like clockwork, she would be at the computer chairs, stretching one paw onto your legs. Her claws were unmistakable! ;o) You would pet her, brush her, sometimes even hold her. She really was a little stuffed animal. She would sleep with her chin stuck straight out in front of her on the bed, or curled up into such a tight little upside down ball. Her favorite spots were on dirty towels in the bathroom (sometimes she would even pull a towel onto the floor so she could sleep on it), against Mom's pillow on her bed, the top story of the kitty tree house while we would be upstairs watching movies, or on the top of my piano. She was a very musical kitty, I could play my piano while she was sleeping on the top and she would care. Of course, she would stare at me through one opened eye over the top of the sheet music, but if I pretended not to notice her, she would go back to sleep. However, if I hit a wrong note, the eyes would pop open and I'd be in for more staring. Funny baby. But she didn't mind showtoons, classical, even opera, as long as it was on-key.

Well, she has always had mouth problems since she was probably six months old. However, she was never depressed, actually she was a very happy cat. But we knew that it would eventually get worse. She would occasionally have a bad day. You could never pet her face or her chin, even on good days. But she ate great and was always normal. For the past several moths, though, she has had more bad days and the last couple weeks she started really going downhill. She wasn't happy anymore and she started losing weight. We knew, and although for the past year we had all known this would come soon, it still hurts. This morning Dad had to take her to the vet. You know, it doesn't matter how many we have or have lost, each one is so special in their own way that it really hurts to lose them. At least she won't hurt anymore. Knowing that she is waiting for us with Dee, Sydney, Caddy, Aline, and Little Joe, I still can't help crying. I am rejoicing and thanking God for the five and a half wonderful years that he gave her to us. We'll never forget our little Mintie-Fish - one of the sweetest little kitties, who blessed the world with her presence. My Darling, I Love You!

(*Click this link or the photo at the top to view a photo album of Aramintie.)

". . . the LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; . . . Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forever more." - Job 1:21b & Psalm 113:2

"My heart is, and always will be, yours."

Every day, around 2:20 in the afternoon, I make sure to go check the mail. Most of the time we only get junk mail that gets thrown out or recycled immediately. Sometimes I wonder why I am so excited and wait for the mail to arrive. Well, Monday dawned grey and cold and I patiently waited (again) for the mail. Went out at 2:20 and filled my bird feeders before opening the trusty metal mail receptacle. Two things, neither was to become recycled material in the next batch of cereal boxes. One was a secret, which I still don't know about, and the other was an oversized envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting. As I am not in the custom of writing myself letters (I'm not that desperate to get mail!), it had to be fanmail. Sarah and I have slacked off of writing it (need to get back at it!), but there are still a few that we sent out there. Well, this was an interesting envelope because it had the US stamps which I had put on it and it had a UK stamp below the US ones. I figured out which one it was by the time I was halfway back to the house. Only one person had I sent fanmail to in the US who was a British person. When I opened it, I saw that I was right.

They were from British actress Emma Thompson who starred in the 1995 film of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Ooooooo, was I excited! I have been waiting (patiently) for these. Slightly surprised that it only took ten months. I had kind of expected over a year. Well worth whatever wait. We each got a photo and I got a bookplate to mount in my copy of her Sense and Sensibility screenplay.

The funny story about the screenplay goes back to the first times we saw the film. My very, very favorite scene in the film is when Edward comes to the cottage and proposes to Elinor. So romantic.

ELINOR rises suddenly, EDWARD turns and they stand looking at one another.

ELINOR
Then you -- are not married.

EDWARD
No.

ELINOR bursts into tears. The shock of this emotional explosion stuns everyone for a second and then MARIANNE makes an executive decision. Wordlessly, she takes MARGARET'S hand and leads her and MRS. DASHWOOD out of the room. ELINOR cannot stop crying. EDWARD comes forward, very slowly.

EDWARD
Elinor! I met Lucy when I was very young. Had I an active profession, I should never have felt such an idle, foolish inclination. My behaviour at Norland was very wrong. But I convinced myself that you felt only friendship for me and that it was my heart alone that I was risking. I have come with no expectations. Only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be -- yours.

ELINOR looks at him, her face streaked with tears of released emotion, of pain, and of happiness.

I actually saw the movie for years before ever reading the book. Decided that I would try the book, so during the last quilt project, I got the book-on-tape of it. Really enjoyed, waited for the proposal and when it finally came . . . she passed over it! Never a word! She just says that (to paraphrase) everyone knows what happened so no need to tell what actually happens. She skips to dinner that night. Well! I had to stop the tape and think. Maybe I missed it. Rewind. It's still not there. Can't have missed it. Rewind again. Positively it isn't there. Man! I was stunned! My favorite scene. One of the most romantic proposals ever. It sounds just like Jane Austen. It isn't! That meant there was only one option. They wrote it for the movie. I thought about it for a moment. Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay. I really liked her playing Elinor, now I really liked her screenplay! I became an instant fan of hers. If you have ever read the book, you know how Sense and Sensibility is not written for film. Emma Thompson did a fantastic job adapting the book to film. In my opinion, she sooooooo deserved the Oscar for Best Screenplay. I would have sent her my screenplay, except postage to mail it would have made it outrageous. So, a bookplate will suffice. I couldn't be happier!

Happy Winter, Rise and Shine . . .

"Snow, snow, snow, snow! . . . ."

In the immortal words of Irving Berlin, "SNOW"! Not a ton, but enough to make the world white and the roads covered. So, we are sticking around. Yesterday was an absolutely wonderful day. We had coffee and a big breakfast and then Dad and I went upstairs. He tied flies and I dusted books. Pulled the sofa out and did all the shelves behind. Tons of books, as they are juvenile non-fiction. I did manage to organize them well enough so that I have about a foot and a half of free space. I did take some off that were miss-shelved. However, I am hoping that I will be able to put them in their proper shelves and not lose much space.

Jennie called in the afternoon, so we talked for about an hour. She was cleaning her apartment and I was sitting behind the sofa! Guess we were both kind of dusty. ;o) It was great to talk to her since we got to meet last Sunday. Turns out that she took French lessons in high school and used to be able to write it. So, I am going to really try going through my French-English Grammar book. She said that we could try writing letters in French if I learn enough and she brushed up. That would be fun!

Well, today is still snowy and the roads are white, so we are sticking around. The wind is really blowing and it is only 58 degrees in the house, even with Dad getting up all night to do fires. So we are going to try and keep warm. Actually, I think Dad will tie some more flies later. We are almost done with our audiobook of Pride and Prejudice. One more disc to go. It is really swell. Emilia Fox is reading and she does different voices for every character. She is brilliant. Dad and I are really enjoying it, so we'll finish it later.

"For to the snow, He says, 'Fall on the earth,' . . ." - Job 37:6

Bloomfield Cemetery and Books

Last week we went (again) to Bloomfield Cemetery, just outside of Sparta in Morrow Co. This is one of the prettiest cemeteries that we have been to yet. It is also where most of the Swetlands are buried. My Swetland genealogy is really coming along. I already have over 1200 people in my family tree. Truanna's daddy, Joseph Carper Swetland is among those buried at Bloomfield. Below are some photos of me standing next to his marker and the large Swetland monument. I keep finding more Swetlands there in the vicinity. Girls who got married and I don't know their married names. I think I have most of them now, although I do still get surprised. Here are some photos that Sarah took of me while we were there. The first is me with a child's stone that I was cleaning off so that we could transcribe it. The second is me with the Swetland monument, and the third is me behind Joseph Carper's stone.



The past couple of days I have been going through transcriptions of Knox Co. newspaper articles on rootsweb. A lady's grandmother saved thousands of clippings from the 1900s to 1940s, and she has been typing them up on rootsweb for the past several years. Absolutely fantastic! I have found so many good ones, it is amazing. Well, I have been putting obits on the findagrave memorials for anyone I recognize the name for. Found one for a "P.B. Chase", buried in Bloomfield. Well, I knew we had seen him, so I figured I would send the obit. Long obit. So I read it. So interesting. Turns out that the man is the guy who built the beautiful estate on SR229, which we pass on the way to the cemetery and we passed for more than a year when we went to Church in Sunbury. I always mean to stop and take a photo, but never have. Well, this Plimpton Chase is the guy who built the beautiful estate on his family's property which was originally his great-grandfather's Revolutionary War service land grant. They are selling it on sotheby's right now for almost a million dollars.



I thought it would be really fun to have them in my family tree. However, I don't have any Chases in the Swetland tree. However, like Bloomfield and Chester townships always are, they are related! It only took us five minutes to totally connect the Chases and the Swetlands! Truanna's mother is Emily Howard, her father's brother (so her uncle) had Martha Howard who was Plimpton's mother! Not only that, Martha's sister Rachel was married to Jacob Y. Beers and they had Emery, who married Joseph Carper and Emily's daughter, Elzina! Honestly, if you studied all the people buried at Chester Baptist Cemetery and the people at Bloomfield, they are almost all related to each other. It really is amazing.

Today it is grey, windy, and snowy. We got about an inch and a half last night and it is supposedly going to snow some more today. Yay! So, this morning we are going to make some coffee (already have the hot tea!) and I am going to vacuum some of the books upstairs. Last night I did four shelves of the childrens bios. A couple nights ago I did five shelves of the Wanna-Bes. It is so nice looking when they are dusted and all even on the shelves. I am listening to an audiobook of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice". It is read by Emilia Fox, who played Georgianna in the 1995 mini-series. I am over half way done and really enjoying it. Lizzy just toured Pemberley with her aunt and uncle. So, those are my plans for this beautiful snowy day. :o)

". . . the genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation . . . " - 2 Chronicles 31:18b

God Save the Queen!

Sixty years ago today, the newspaper headlines proclaimed "The King is dead; long live the Queen!". Today is the 60th anniversery of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Sixty years ago, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip were in Kenya on a tour, when they found out that King George VI had died that morning. Prince Philip was told and he told the Queen while they walked in a garden. The next day she arrived back in England, this time as its' Queen.

Former PM Clement Attlee to the House of Commons: “It is our hope that Her Majesty may live long and happily and that her reign may be as glorious as that of her great predecessor, Queen Elizabeth I. Let us hope we are witnessing the beginning of a new Elizabethan Age no less renowned than the first. We hope that Her Majesty The Queen and her Consort may live long and prosperously and may see more peaceful days than those which fell to the lot of His late Majesty whose loss we mourn today.”

British and Americans alike, few of us can remember another Queen of England. Today, she is the second British monarch to reign 60 years and only her grandmother, Queen Victoria, has reigned longer.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "When the death of the King was announced to us yesterday morning there struck a deep and solemn note in our lives which, as it resounded far and wide, stilled the clatter and traffic of twentieth-century life in many lands, and made countless millions of human beings pause and look around them. A new sense of values took, for the time being, possession of human minds, and mortal existence presented itself to so many at the same moment in its serenity and in its sorrow, in its splendour and in its pain, in its fortitude and in its suffering.

The King was greatly loved by all his peoples. He was respected as a man and as a prince far beyond the many realms over which he reigned. The simple dignity of his life, his manly virtues, his sense of duty - alike as a ruler and a servant of the vast spheres and communities for which he bore responsibility - his gay charm and happy nature, his example as a husband and a father in his own family circle, his courage in peace or war - all these were aspects of his character which won the glint of admiration, now here, now there, from the innumerable eyes whose gaze falls upon the Throne. . . .

. . . All this we saw and admired. His conduct on the Throne may well be a model and a guide to constitutional sovereigns throughout the world today and also in future generations. The last few months of King George's life, with all the pain and physical stresses that he endured - his life hanging by a thread from day to day, and he all the time cheerful and undaunted, stricken in body but quite undisturbed and even unaffected in spirit - these have made a profound and an enduring impression and should be a help to all.

He was sustained not only by his natural buoyancy, but by the sincerity of his Christian faith. During these last months the King walked with death as if death were a companion, an acquaintance whom he recognized and did not fear. In the end death came as a friend, and after a happy day of sunshine and sport, and after "good night" to those who loved him best, he fell asleep as every man or woman who strives to fear God and nothing else in the world may hope to do. . . .

. . . There is no doubt that of all the institutions which have grown up among us over the centuries, or sprung into being in our lifetime, the constitutional monarchy is the most deeply founded and dearly cherished by the whole association of our peoples. In the present generation it has acquired a meaning incomparably more powerful than anyone had dreamed possible in former times. The Crown has become the mysterious link, indeed I may say the magic link, which unites our loosely bound, but strongly interwoven Commonwealth of nations, states, and races....

For fifteen years George VI was King. Never at any moment in all the perplexities at home and abroad, in public or in private, did he fail in his duties. Well does he deserve the farewell salute of all his governments and peoples.

It is at this time that our compassion and sympathy go out to his consort and widow. Their marriage was a love match with no idea of regal pomp or splendour. Indeed, there seemed to be before them only the arduous life of royal personages, denied so many of the activities of ordinary folk and having to give so much in ceremonial public service. May I say - speaking with all freedom - that our hearts go out tonight to that valiant woman, with famous blood of Scotland in her veins, who sustained King George through all his toils and problems, and brought up with their charm and beauty the two daughters who mourn their father today. May she be granted strength to bear her sorrow.

To Queen Mary, his mother, another of whose sons is dead - the Duke of Kent having been killed on active service - there belongs the consolation of seeing how well he did his duty and fulfilled her hopes, and of knowing how much he cared for her.

Now I must leave the treasures of the past and turn to the future. Famous have been the reigns of our queens. Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptre. Now that we have the second Queen Elizabeth, also ascending the Throne in her twenty-sixth year, our thoughts are carried back nearly four hundred years to the magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied and inspired the grandeur and genius of the Elizabethan age.

Queen Elizabeth II, like her predecessor, did not pass her childhood in any certain expectation of the Crown. But already we know her well, and we understand why her gifts, and those of her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, have stirred the only part of the Commonwealth she has yet been able to visit. She has already been acclaimed as Queen of Canada.

We make our claim too, and others will come forward also, and tomorrow the proclamation of her sovereignty will command the loyalty of her native land and of all other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire. I, whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged and tranquil glories of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem, "God save the Queen!"

Meeting Jennie in Cleveland

Today we finally got to meet Jennie! She and Carrie drove to Erie, PA for the weekend and today, Jennie drove to Cleveland and met us! For the first time! We met at the Cleveland Art Museum and then spent some time at Pizza Hut before we had to all head separate ways at 3:00pm. I have been writing to Jennie for three or four years now and we talk on the phone, but it was fantastic to be able to finally meet her. :o) Hopefully it won't be three years before we can meet up again! We almost forgot to take any photos, but thankfully Mom remembered before we left the parking lot. ;o)

The Cleveland Art Museum was fun. I don't think we've been there in ten years. They are still not done with the renovations, so not all of the collections are displayed, but they had a lot. The armour and weapons section was great, as always. The swords and daggers were gorgeous. As far as paintings go, we we went through all the sections except for the modern art. They had a Reynolds painting which we wanted to see, as Sarah has been studying Reynolds paintings of the Eliot's lately. It was much larger than I expected. Gorgeous. I was particularly excited to see that they own a painting of Yosemite by Albert Bierstadt. He married a Swetland (well, an Osborn, but her mother or grandmother was a Swetland). His painting looked as cool in real life as the scan did!

However, the best part of the day was getting to meet Jennie. We have talked about it for so long, it was fantastic to finally be able to meet each other!

"A friend loves at all times . . ." - Proverbs 17:16

Welcoming the New Year with "Lord of the Rings"

Another Year, another New Year's Day, another Trilogy Tuesday. Ever since the real Trilogy Tuesday on 16 December 2003, we have celebrated the New Year by having our own trilogy day. When Lord of the Rings was coming out, we practically burst with excitement and anticipation waiting for the next movie to be released. New Line Cinema did a special one-showing-only deal where you could see all three films back-to-back. What was even more exciting was that they showed them the day before Return of the King was released! So, December 16th found us standing outside a theatre in North Canton at 9:00 in the morning. Mom, the two of us, and a friend went together.

They played the extended versions of Fellowship and Two Towers and then the last film! Boy, were we excited! The theatre was nice, and the crowd was great (since everyone was a real fan)! You got a sticker that you stuck on your seat and if anyone was caught swapping seats, they were ejected. The first film began at 1:00 in the afternoon. You got an hour between the first and second films, and 45 minutes between the second and third films. We ate at Panera for lunch, at Pizza Hut for dinner. The last film ended after 1:30 in the morning. It was really a fun way to see the third film, and really fantastic to be able to see the two extended versions on the big screen! Everyone got a special souvenir from New Line Cinema. They made special little stand-up frames that contain one real frame from each of the three films. We still have these in our room in shadow boxes. I even got one that had Elrond in it!

So, we made a family tradition that every New Year's Day, we watch all three films. We don't watch them any other time of the year so that they are special. This year we actually started early enough that we were able to finish them and it was only 10:30! It was a yucky day outside and we were all really tired, so nobody minded sitting all day. Since we replaced our surround sound receiver last year, it was fantastic (and loud!). The scene of the Flight to the Ford was as wonderful as ever. I am really wanting to try and make a little doll of Arwen in that scene. Of course, Elrond, Galadriel, and Eowyn were fantastic. Especially scene 56 in Return of the King. Sarah and I waited so long for that one scene, it is special!



Winter finally arrived. Snow, rain, wind, grey skies. Don't mind though. It is nice to be able to stay home and not have big plans. I got an audio book from the library that I am really wanting to listen to. Might go upstairs today and start. Pride and Prejudice, read by Emilia Fox (who played Georgiana in the 1995 mini-series). I bet she'll be fantastic!

We are still working on FindAGrave.com. We have sort of adopted Morrow County cemeteries and are working at getting photos and burial records transcribed for a lot of them. However, I have made slight detour. Mom found transcribed records of a Liverpool, England cemetery. It opened in 1825, was closed in 1898, and in 1913/14 they turned it into a park(!?). Removing the large stones, burying the flat ones and removing the surrounding wall and chapel. Now it is this flat grassy area without a sign or anything. I think it is weird. It is now a common spot to get your wedding photos taken. Oh, well . . . It turns out that Mom's great-great Grandmother's first husband and three of their babies are buried there! Fantastic, as she has spent years looking for them! So, I started inputting people onto findagrave. So far I have done 231 people. Gave myself an arm cramp yesterday. They have transcribed the records from 1825-1837. Only twelve years (only! ), but there are over 13,000 people buried in those twelve years. I told Mom this morning, I have managed to do two days this week where I input 100 names. At that rate it will take me over 130 days before finishing! What you probably don't know is that there are over 80,000 people buried in that cemetery (which was an area that was not quite 5 acres). Whoa! So, I will keep working!

God's blessing on the New Year!
"lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen." - Matthew 28:20b