So before I go too far down the road of 52 ancestors, thought I'd better catch up my few readers (if any are left) on my life the last few years.  Let's see, since January of 2023...

Steve and I are still miraculously together.  We definitely have our ups and downs still but "for better or for worse" right?

Scott has been stationed in Korea these last few years.  He met a beautiful girl named Minju and they were married last fall in Korea.  We got to travel to Korea for the wedding.  They are now expecting twin girls.

Eric and Trina are still in Grand Rapids.  He is a nurse in the Cardiac Cath Lab at a local hospital.  Trina finally got her private pilot's license, and is now working on instrument rating certification.  Eventually she wants to become a commercial pilot.  They still have Winston, and brought home a brother for him, Duncan, in January.  Duncan was a rescue dog from a hoarding situation, so it's taken time.  They are both purebred dachshunds.

Oh, Scott's Marty?  He now lives with us again as Scott and Minju's landlord asked them to rehome him.  He was apparently too scary for the elderly Korean women in the complex.  (And if you know Marty, that is so not true!)  Thankfully Scott was coming back to the states for a training so he came home first with Marty.  Marty is almost 11 now so I think we'll probably be his home for the rest of his time on earth.  We couldn't see him being rehomed to strangers in Korea.

Our Max had quite a few health issues over the last years of his life.  He was stable, though, when we left for Korea last fall, so left him in a private home petsitter.  Not sure if it was not having us around or the natural progression of his issues, but he went downhill rapidly and we made that hard decision to send him over the rainbow bridge the day after we returned from Korea.   

It's nice to have a dog again with Marty here.

I was the caretaker for my mom as she continued her battle with dementia.  The last six months of her life, we had found a wonderful care place in Lowell and things settled down for her.  She passed a year ago in February.  Even though she had greatly pared down her possessions over the last few years, there was still a lot to deal with between her "stuff" and dealing with the financial and legal aspects of her estate.  That is all behind me now, except for some of her stuff still in our basement.  One of the really hard things about her death was that my older sister passed the day before mom.  We were expecting mom's death, not my sisters.

I'm still working as an urgent care registrar.  Planning to retire in August and start to have the time to accomplish the things I want to do.  One of those things being dealing with all my accumulated possessions that I don't need any more.  I don't want to leave that task for my kids.

I want to travel, too.  Planning on Korea this fall to see my new granddaughters, then after that we'll see.  One regret I have with Steve is that he doesn't really want to travel any more.   Especially with me.  So if I go, it'll probably be solo.  Or maybe a sister trip with Judy?  

Well, that's about it for an update.  

So a couple of years later...

It was a really slow day at work last week so one day I decided to see if I could still find my old blog.  I did and I read the entire blog over the course of the day.  I really wish I'd continued with the 52 ancestors thing, so  I decided to get the themes and start again.

Week 1's theme was "In the Beginning"

For me, the beginning was when I was about 15.  As I vaguely recall, there was a summer class at the school library on genealogy.  I was already a history buff, so what history would be more interesting than my own?  Talked to my dad's parents, who were local for me, and wrote a letter to my mom's mother in Indiana, and filled in the basic blanks going back a few generations.  Everything was done on paper back then, of course - no computers to help us out in so many ways as it is now.

I remember going into Madison, to the State Historical Society library, more than a few times to do research on microfilm and microfiche.  That helped fill in many of the blanks.  Eventually discovered I have more than a few Mayflower ancestors so that was quite interesting as well.

College came and my interest slowed down.  But eventually I met and married my husband and there was a whole new set of ancestors!  Not mine by birth, but they would belong to my eventual children.  As my husband is an only child, all of the records passed down thru generations were already in our hands, or in his parents possession.    

As time moved on, I would do research off and on.  Our early computer was useful for compiling family group sheets and other records more quickly than writing them by hand.

And then came the age of internet.  It is so much easier to do research and compile information now.  I have a membership to ancestry.com which has been immensely helpful.