Make Memorial Day Count

Memorial Day 2012

Baltimore National Veteran's Cemetery

Baltimore, MD

WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Dear Stephanie, Happy 30th Birthday!

Today my dear niece and goddaughter, Stephanie Clare, turns 30! 

I can hardly believe it, those years have flown by so quickly!  Although Stephanie is a lovely young woman, all grown up and self-supporting, I still occasionally think of her as a little girl.

As an only child, Stephanie's childhood is well-documented with lots of great photos.  But here are two of my favorite, very impromptu and casual photos of her; my guess is she has never seen these. 

The first one was taken when Stephanie, her mom and dad (my sister, Sharon and brother-in-law, Ed) and I were all on vacation together in Florida. 

At the breakfast table.
DisneyWorld, late 1980s.

The next photo was taken in the car on the way to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania.  We were going for a day of fun in the chocolate-themed park.  Stephanie had just learned to blow a bubble! 

Happy Birthday, Stephanie!

Hope your day is SUPER-KRELL!!!





Images of Wales - Travel Tuesday

Recently we visited family in Wales.  Soon, we'll be going again.  We're very fortunate in this way.  This doesn't happen every year, this doesn't happen every other year.  But for some wonderful, unknown reason, this year, within the space of a few months, we will be going again. 

I thought I'd share some of my favorite images from our March trip.  We were there for less than a week, so didn't take that many photos.  Of the remainder, most are actually more appropriate for a Tombstone Tuesday post than anything else.  I'll get to work on that soon.

These are the views from Meridian Quay, a new 29-storey building in Swansea.  At 29 floors, it is the tallest building in Wales.  Seems almost miniscual compared to the grandeur of buildings in the U.S., but it's a big deal in Wales.  And it is beautiful.  The top three floors consist of The Grape and Olive Restaurant, which provides incredible 360 degree views across the marina, bay and city.  These are our own photos, taken when we stopped in for tea one afternoon.



I love the coastline here: wide, white beach, and the city just springs up right next to it!

  



Shore on one side, mountains on the other,
with a city squeezed in between!

  

Looking across the bay.

 

Swansea Marina.

 

You Are Here!

This shot of a window at the restaurant is, for some odd reason,
my favorite of the whole bunch!

Family Friday Recipe - Welsh Bara Brith

My mother-in-law is a great cook.  Really.  I'm not just saying this to get on her good side.  She is a fantastic cook.  My goal for our upcoming trip is to snag her recipe for steak and kidney pie.  Not that I could ever hope to come near to her creation.  It is mouthwatering, filling, comfort food, everything wonderful.  It is often our "reward" for a long day of travel across the pond.

In the meantime, her Bara Brith is also a knock-out.  Bara brith is kind of like of a fruit cake, but not quite as dense.  Serve it with tea, or coffee.  Divine!

Marion's Bara Brith

2 oz. margarine

4 oz. brown sugar

8 oz. sultanas, golden raisins or other minced fruit

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

pinch of salt

1/4 pint of boiling water

1 egg

8 oz. self-rising flour

Use a loaf pan, greased and lined. 

Put margarine, sugar, minced fruit, bicarb of soda and salt in bowl. 

Pour in boiling water and mix.  Beat in egg and flour. 

Cook one hour at 350 degrees. 

She's added a line at the bottom:

"Honestly, it does work."

Well, we begged for the recipe but have not tried it yet.  But I know it does work, I've seen her do it on numerous occasions.  She's even tutored our friends on what might have gone wrong with their attempts!
Try it, tell me if you like it. 



 

Podcast Available! Navigating the 1940 Census...

On Saturday, March 31, I and other members of our Genealogy Discussion Group, along with 100-200 other lucky folk, were fortunate to attend our local Enoch Pratt Free Library's annual genealogy event.  They are big into genealogy at the Pratt! 

This year, Thomas MacEntee, yes, Mr. GeneaBloggers himself, was in town!  Talk about thrilled!

As expected, Thomas gave a great presentation, packed with super information on Navigating the 1940 Census and Social Networking for Genealogists. 

A podcast is now available. Even though the Census has been released, Thomas's presentation still offers helpful insight and tips, certainly timely and worth viewing.

And for a social media newbie like myself, the technology presentations were excellent as well.  Many of us know Google as a search engine, but there are many other applications where a genealogist can while away many, many hours! 

A great day, indeed!

Thrifty Thursday - Keeping Warm in Wales

It's not yet Springtime in Wales.

My feathers are bare, coolness abounds.

A creative recycler adopted me,

Now warmth and fashion surrounds.

My sister-in-law, a talented seamstress and diligent recycler, used an old fleece jacket to create little vests for her two newly-adopted hens.  Their feathers are a bit thin due to stress from their previous living conditions.  Apparently, the girls are happy to have the extra warmth and do not mind wearing the garments.  This one even modeled quite nicely for the camera, don't you think?!!

Beth assures us that both of the girls are doing well and their feathers are coming in beautifully.  I'll have updated photos when we visit again next month. 

Travel Tuesday - Toting All Those Photos!

Well, between getting back into the grind from our vacation in Wales to see family, to still being on this crazy-energy whirlwind of re-organizing and cleaning out the house, I haven’t had much time for genealogy.  I had been pretty deep into helping hubby with the boatload of photos and documents he brought back from Wales.  We are now finished with this project.  Good thing, too, as we are on a deadline since we’ll be heading back soon, and will take them back with us. 

Not expecting that my mother-in-law would let about 100 years worth and 500 photos out of her possession, we were unprepared and had no idea we’d have such a blessing (read as: ton) of photos to tote back across the pond.  So what to do? 

Not to mention that along with the photos was a big Welsh bible from his grandmother’s aunt/cousin’s family, and decades worth of family documents of all shapes and sizes.  

As for the documents, a first-grader could have devised a better "folder" than hubby did.  But since he wanted no input or assistance from me on this, so I left him to his own devices. You can see his incredibly "secure" packaging below.  And prepared thus, we hoped for the best and headed home! 

  

Stacks of British birth, death, marriage
certificates and more.
Larger than legal size!

As you can imagine, the people at airport security were quite interested in all of this when it went through the scanner!  At three airports (Cardiff, Dublin and Boston), we had to take everything out of the carry-on for them to go through it. 

I have to give them their due, they were very polite, understanding of the delicacy of the documents, and gentle with everything, even offering to put the photos back into the tin.  In return, we politely declined and did it ourselves, to have it all in the right order.  One of the agents even wore white gloves, but that was probably to protect himself rather than our aging documents.  I would have loved to photo the process of them investigating everything, but I know they frown on that kind of thing. 

As a paper crafter and scrapbooking enthusiast, I know something about acid-free storage, and have appropriate containers for scrapbooks and other things I have crafted. However, this is A LOT of photos.  And I don’t want to be toting empty storage boxes back with me.  

So when we go back in a few weeks, hubby will instead be using a sturdy cardboard box that he uses to store computer peripherals.  It’s just a bit larger than his mom’s old cookie tin.  The box snaps shut, so even though it is not acid-free, it will be much easier to work with going through airport security.  And it's easy enough to get another here, so we can just leave it there, for perhaps the second round of photos to be transported!