I don’t know if any of my grandmothers or great-grandmothers were Girl Scouts, but I was one and three of my daughters are currently scouts too (we’re still recovering from cookie season!)

I was a Brownie and Junior Girl Scout and while I know that we went camping and did outdoorsy stuff, my most vivid memory of Girl Scouts was the fashion show we put on for our moms.  Unfortunately my mom still has the recording on a dusty VHS tape in the back of one of her closets.  It’s hilarious – and embarrassing.

Here I am as a Brownie on a trip to an amusement park….

And my mom is placing a pin on my uniform.  Just love my beanie cap.  My little brother is peeking into the camera.

Last year, we lived in Savannah, GA – where Girl Scouts began.  Here are a few pictures of some of the famous Girl Scouts sites in the area:

One of my genealogy goals for this year was to write out the birth stories of each of my five children.  This is no small feat since the past 12 years of child-rearing and homeschooling has turned my memory to mush.  The details of my memories are fading a bit and I want to make sure that I get them written down for my kids.  I know that they will enjoy hearing about it later.

Katie is my second child, and my second daughter.  I’m starting with her story, because her birthday happens to be in February and that’s when I’m writing this.

I found out I was pregnant with Kate while we were living in Copperas Cove, Texas and my husband was stationed at nearby Fort Hood.  We were living in the first house that we actually owned.  It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for our small family and it had a huge yard with peach, pear, and fig trees – which produced tons of wonderful fruit.

We weren’t “trying” to get pregnant, but we weren’t not trying either.   At the time, our first daughter, Ellie,  was 2 years old.

I actually found out I was pregnant on Father’s Day 2001 – and as a present, I wrapped up my positive test for my husband.  He was clueless at first – wondering what on earth I had just given him.  I wish I had taken a video of his reaction, because he was so perplexed.  I could tell that he didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but he really didn’t know what it was. It finally hit him though and of course he was excited. I think that was a pretty good Father’s Day present, don’ t you?

My pregnancy with Kate was fairly easy.  No complications, other than the fact that she blocked off the circulation to my left leg.  She was worth it though.

My husband’s parents came down to help out.  We figured that if they were staying with us, then whenever I went into labor we could just leave for the hospital and not worry about childcare for Ellie.  Kate didn’t come when she was supposed to though.  We waited and waited and waited some more.  Andy’s parents had to return to Kansas without seeing the baby.

I had gone pretty quick with my first child (I was at the hospital for about 2 hours) and so I knew that I shouldn’t hesitate to leave for the hospital.  That, paired with the fact that a friend had recently told me about someone who had just had her child in the bathroom at home  made me hyper-sensitive about getting to the hospital on time.  I always had a fear that I was going to give birth on the side of the road in the car.  Thankfully, that never happened!

I started having contractions at night (don’t ask me why but that happened with all of my kids!).  They were pretty close together, so I decided I’d wake my husband up and start getting ready to go to the hospital.  We dropped our daughter off with a friend and drove straight there.

I felt sick in the parking lot and ended up losing my dinner.  I felt much better after that though and was actually able to walk inside to the desk.  I told them I thought I was in labor and they kind of laughed like it was going to be a while.

They ushered me into an exam room and I put on one of those horrible gowns.  So embarrassing, but at this point in time I didn’t really care much.

My husband was desperate for some caffeine and so he decided to go in search of coffee while I was being examined by the doctor.

I was a bit shocked when the nurse told me that I was already 10 cm, the baby was crowning,  and  they didn’t have any time to take me to the delivery room.  Everyone started scrambling around me.  They converted the bed, went in search of the doctor and my husband, and brought in all of the necessary things.

It all happened so fast!  I didn’t have anytime to worry or even think.

Thankfully, my husband was only grabbing a cup of coffee at the nurse’s station.  I don’t think he would have made it in time had he gone downstairs to the cafeteria.  He was just as shocked as I was when he walked in and the baby was crowning.

My water didn’t break until a couple of  minutes before Kate was born.

They told me not to push, and I didn’t.  She was coming out on her own.  They actually had me COUGH a few times.  I’m not exaggerating.   I coughed and her head came out, I coughed again and she was born.  A healthy, beautiful 9 pound baby.  It was amazing.

And do you know the wonderful thing about having a baby that quickly?  The recovery time is so much shorter than normal.  I didn’t have a long exhausting labor where I felt like I was going to collapse and sleep for days.  I was up and walking around right away.

And here is a picture of Katie taken this weekend, blowing out the candles on her 10th birthday. It’s hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since she was born.

This challenge runs from Saturday, March 12, 2011 through Friday, March 18, 2011.

The injury that sticks out the most in my memory is the time I broke my leg.

I was at the end of my 8th grade year.  It was lunchtime and after I ate, I headed out to the field to play some baseball.  I lived in Washington, so it’s no surprise that the grass was wet.  We weren’t on a normal baseball diamond, just grass.

I hit the ball and as I was running past first base, I attempted to slow down, but couldn’t.  I slipped on the wet grass, flew up into the air, and landed with my left leg underneath my body.

I got up and hobbled to the side of the field.  I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, but I knew that something wasn’t right.  I wasn’t necessarily in a ton of pain, but I started to feel woozy and I definitely couldn’t walk.

Two friends carried me up to the front office of the school.  My P.E. teacher, Mr. Mauri checked my leg.  It was the 80′s and I was wearing some tight jeans.  My jeans actually had zippers on the ankles, so that they were easier to get on.  They were my favorite pair.  And he cut them with a pair of scissors. (I of course realize now that this was necessary.  At the time I was devastated to lose my acid-washed jeans).

Upon seeing my leg, it was very apparent that it was broken.  Thankfully, it wasn’t poking through the skin or anything gross like that, but there was a definite bump on my leg and it was beginning to swell.

They tried calling my parents, but there was no answer at home.  I think that my mom was at home, but didn’t hear the phone.  They called my best friend’s mom instead and she showed up at the school and rode with me in the ambulance to the hospital.  Yes, I got to ride in an ambulance.

By this time, it was starting to hurt.  Every bump of that ride was painful, but I made it.

When I got my X-rays back, it showed that I had broken my tibia completely and had cracked my fibula over halfway through. Yikes!

Bad news for a 13 year old at the beginning of summer (I think it was May when it happened).

I spent my ENTIRE summer with a cast on.  The first couple month and a half (or so) it was up to my thigh.  Bathing was hard.  Seeing my friends swim at the lake was even harder.  It was hot and uncomfortable and I was on crutches, hobbling around for weeks.

Then, the doctor cut it down below my knee.  I couldn’t believe how hard it was for me to bend my knee.  I was still on crutches, but I feel so free with only half a cast.

After that cast came off, another was put on – this time a walking cast.  I no longer needed crutches and I got around pretty well.

When that came off (right before school started again) I was put back on crutches.  I had to gradually put weight on my leg, a little at a time, until I could work myself up to walking normally.

Let me tell you that being on crutches for your first few weeks of high school was not fun.  I often hid the crutches in my locker and walked without them.  And when I returned to the doctor, I was scolded for it and had to stay on them even longer.  Darn.

I eventually did wean myself off the crutches though and ended up joining the basketball team that winter.  Now that was a good way to build those muscles back up!

The only other thing I have ever broken is my finger – playing volleyball.  I honestly think that the finger hurt more when it happened – but it healed MUCH quicker!!

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

And we’re not visiting anyone.  Not that I don’t like to go and visit people, because I do – especially since we live so far from everyone we know.  But the truth is, we always take leave to go see people and we rarely go on vacation simply to relax and get away.

No genealogy will be done on this vacation either, because I’m not related to Mickey or Donald or Goofy.  Well, maybe Goofy.

By the time you read this, we’ll be enjoying Disney World with the kids.

They’ve never been before, so they’re pretty darn excited. And honestly we are too.  Everybody loves Disney World, right?

But after a few days walking around the parks with 5 little kids, going on dizzying rides and a whole lot of waiting in line, we’re going to need a vacation from our vacation.  Am I the only one that ever feels this way?

So, after our days at Disney, we’re driving down to Key West.  Just because we can.

And so, I’ll leave you with a picture from my childhood.

We lived in Southern California for a brief time (my dad had a temporary job there and we kept our house in Washington).  We felt like we were on one big vacation.  Sea World.  The San Diego Zoo. Tijuana.  And of course, Disney Land.  This is me, my sister, and one of my brothers with Mickey (I’m on the right).  I believe this was the summer of 1984.

What fun memories.  I’m glad that I’ll be making some of these with my own kids this week.

I was about 10 when I did this project in 1986.  It didn’t go beyond my great-grandparents, but I was fascinated.  When you’re a kid, you tend to think in the now.  I thought it was so cool that my great-grandparents had immigrated from Sweden.  I had never met them, and definitely had never heard their names before.  Lars and Eugenia Bergman.  So foreign.

We only worked on this for a few months and then moved on to another subject – maybe frog dissecting?  I can’t remember exactly.

Genealogy was shelved for me.

I didn’t revisit it again until I had my first daughter, almost 12 years ago.

I often wonder how much more information I could have gleaned had I asked my grandparents more questions when they were still alive.

It started out as one of those waffle-type blankets with the silky trim on it. Your basic baby blanket.  It had writing on it: “Everybody needs a little security”.  Could the words have been any more appropriate?

And as if that weren’t bad enough, I named the thing.  Dee.  Not sure what that was I was trying to say, but maybe “Dee” meant security in my infant language.

I used to sit with that blanket and rub the silky trim between my fingers – all the way around the blanket.  And around.  And around.

The coolness of the silky fabric soothed me.  In all honesty, I could probably sit and do that now on a stressful day and it would help relax me.

But I don’t.  It’s now in the cedar chest at the foot of my bed.  I pulled it out a couple of weeks ago, in order to take a picture of it. (Ok, so maybe I felt the silky trim for a moment or two, I admit it.)

I’m so embarrassed to show it here.  It doesn’t even resemble a blanket anymore.  It looks like some ancient artifact from 200 years ago.  In reality, it’s 34 years old (and hasn’t been touched in about the past 30).  That’s a lot of loving in 4 short years.  A lot.

Here is is, a ball of rags.

I had my daughter hold it up for a picture.  You can see that the trim is barely connected to the middle of the blanket anymore.

None of my kids sucked their thumbs or had special blankets they had to have around to sleep.  I was their security blanket – and lost a lot of sleep because of it.

Please tell me I’m not alone.  Did you have a security blanket too?  Or maybe a very worn stuffed animal?

Week 8: Technology.  What are some of the technological advances that happened during your childhood? What types of technology to you enjoy using today, and which do you avoid?

I was born in 1976 and the majority of my childhood was spent with the latest technological advances.

• We had a color TV with a remote control. I actually had my little brother convinced that I could turn him off with it.  What a cruel big sister I was, wasn’t I?  I remember being so glad when we got that TV set, because I no longer had to be the remote for my parents.   We never had cable though (we lived on an island and it wasn’t available).  We had the good ole bunny ears on the roof – which constantly had to be moved around to get decent reception.
• My uncle lived with us for a while and when he moved in, he brought a microwave.  It was magical.
• I had a “ghettoblaster”, but I probably lived as far from the ghetto as possible.  I loved having a double tape deck.
• I can’t remember what year we got our first computer.  I was probably about 8 or 9 yrs old (just a guess).  It was a Commodore 64 and I thought that it was the coolest thing on earth.  I mean, what’s there not to love about this thing? (We later upgraded to the 64C)

The main screen was this boring two-tone blue color.

And I thought that it was the neatest thing when I read the manual and figured out how to type the code into there so that I could change the colors.  And the font color too.  I had a rainbow of colors adorning our Commodore. I shudder to think of how much time I spent doing this.

I also liked to play games on it of course.  We had a joystick and often played things like Pac-Man (or Woman – I don’t remember which) and Zanac (not Zantac!) .

By far my favorite game was Transylvania.  It was a role-playing type game where you had to type in what you wanted to do. Great graphics, huh? (Photo credit: www.mobygames.com  You can take a walk down memory lane and find all of your favorite old games on there!)

I remember that my little sister always had such a hard time playing this game.  She wasn’t the best of spellers, and the computer often didn’t understand her commands.

It cracks me up now to think how scary I thought this game was.  Especially when the werewolf jumped out at you.

I exaggerate.  There was no jumping – and it doesn’t really look like a werewolf, does it?  We actually had to wait patiently for the next page to load.  I would get so nervous that I couldn’t think what I should type.

Looking back, the game was so silly and the actions took so incredibly long.  I would have to type “put bullet in gun”  “shoot gun at werewolf” etc.  But I really thought it was fun.

I wonder what my kids would think of it – since we have a Wii and a couple of DS’s.  I never could have imagined what technology would be like for my kids.  It amazes me every day.

What a fun walk down memory lane.

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

Here I am with by brother and our dog Nosey.  It looks like someone was trying to hide from the picture-taking.  It has to be my sister.   I’m sure that by brother is thrilled that I’m posting a picture of him in his underwear.

And here is my sister, decorating the tree.  Is is just me, or is that the widest Christmas tree you’ve ever seen?  I think that it’s wider than it is tall!  It looks like it’s taking up half the living room!

And here I am in front of a very little tree. I don’t remember this either. I wonder if it was on a table because my sister was probably at the age where she would pull everything down off of it.

I must have been quite the nerd as a kid.  I know it.  I suppose I still am.

One of the gifts that I remember as being amongst my favorite was a full-sized globe that had a light in it.  I seriously thought that was the coolest thing on earth.  Come to think of it, I wish I still had it.  I’d plug it in right now and stare at all of the places I want to travel.

As I got a bit older, I always did the shopping with my mom and most of the surprise gifts were gone.  I was usually there when she bought my present.  No anticipation for Christmas Day, huh?  I guess that’s what happens when you’re the oldest.  You get recruited into shopping and present wrapping and envelope addressing duty.

The bridge to the island I grew up on

So, after having said that, do you think that we used a fake tree?  I would have felt a traitor.

We always had a real tree.  Always.  Sure, they can be a little messy with the needles falling off and such, but nothing beats the smell of a real tree.  It fills the house.

In my entire life, I have only done a fake tree one year – while Andy was deployed in Iraq.  The thought of getting the tree home and into a stand when it was negative 20 degrees out (with 5 little kids in tow) didn’t appeal to me.  I cheated and bought a cheap tree-in-a-box.  I regretted it.  It just didn’t feel very Christmasy without it – or without him. It was a fake Christmas.

When I was growing up, sometimes we would just go out back and get a tree and other times we’d go to a Christmas Tree farm down the road.  We normally didn’t get our tree until about 2 weeks before Christmas – usually just after my sister’s birthday.

I broke from tradition this year though.  We put our tree up this past weekend.  Here is my youngest daughter, who got the honors of putting the star on this year.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any stories of my ancestors’ Christmas Tree traditions.  I wish that I did!

The game that my father loved to play was RISK.  And how I loathed that game.  Somehow, he would sweet talk us into starting a game with him – and if you’ve ever played a full game of RISK before, you know that it can go on, and on, and on, and on.

I have memories of it being way past midnight, me getting my rear end kicked, but my dad not wanting me to quit.  He wanted victory to come by really winning the game – not because I had given up.

I learned to steer clear of RISK.

And so what did I go and do?  I went and married someone that loves RISK!!  Thankfully, with the advent of the computer, he can sit and play all by himself.

I would love for him to sit down with my dad and play an all-nighter RISK game.  I would happily get the snacks and drinks and stay out of the line of fire!

Want to join in on the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun?  Head on over to Genea-Musings to see the full details of tonight’s fun!

Just imagine what would be one of the worst things to happen on this holiday (well not WORST – no one was hurt thankfully).

My wonderful husband, who is the cook in the family, was getting a jump start by cooking a pie and the turkey the night before.  The pie turned out wonderful.  Then he put the turkey in.  It cooked for about an hour, when the oven died.

So, we had a half-cooked turkey and no oven.  Thankfully, we are in post housing with many neighbors.  He took it across the street to finish it off.

I waited while the maintenance man came – and told me that he couldn’t fix it until Friday.

So, we are learning that the microwave can be used for much more than reheating leftovers.  Potatoes, stuffing, corn, pretty much all of our side dishes are being made in the microwave.  I’m just thankful that we aren’t having any guests!

It has been years and years since I had a huge Thanksgiving dinner with family.  That’s life in the military. We’re always halfway across the country from everyone we know.

When I was a kid, we always had all of my dad’s brothers and sister (and their families) over for the day.  My Aunt Colleen would make tons of pies.  We would eat until we were bursting at the seams.  Football would be blaring and us kids would hang out – one of the few times we would be all together each year.  We would all be in a turkey coma by the end of the day.

One of my favorite Thanksgivings was when we got a ton of snow and went innertubing down the hill beyond our house.  We normally don’t get so much snow that early in Western Washington (although I think that they did this year!).

I am looking forward to the day when we settle down and can gather together with family again.

I hope that you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving with your families!!

If you haven’t checked out Cherie’s brand new blog yet, head on over to Have You Seen My Roots?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any stories or pictures of my ancestors on Halloween. I really wish that I did.

I do have my own memories though.  I’m sure that someday my children would like to hear about how I spent the holiday when I was a kid.

I grew up on an island in the woods.  We were the only people living up our dirt road and the closest neighbors were at least a mile away.  Do you see the picture I’m painting?  No bags overflowing with candy for me.  No trick-or-treaters at our door.

Before you start feeling really sorry for me though, I did have fun on Halloween.

My elementary school always had a huge Halloween Festival.  It was a big deal in the rural area we lived in, because so many people didn’t live in neighborhoods where they could go door-to-door.  The gym was full of games to play, cake walks, a fortune teller, and of course everyone was in costume. It was the place to be!  We always had a good time and came home with candy and junk toys.

Once or twice, I tagged along with a friend into town to hit one of the neighborhoods for some extra candy.  I always felt weird knocking on strangers doors though.