Climbing My Family Tree

I have been so incredibly busy lately, but it’s been a good busy.  I have to admit that I as much as I dreaded our move to El Paso, this has been one of the best tours of my husband’s Army career.  While the terrain isn’t my style – I’m more for water nearby and lots of green foilage – the people I’ve met here are wonderful.  I think I’ve made more friends here than all of our other duty stations combined.  What this means is that I’m constantly busy with outings and social events and I have to admit that it’s been really nice to be busy doing fun things.  December is always a very busy month anyway, and it seems like we have a party to go to every day or two.  I haven’t had a lot of time for genealogy or blogging this week – but I did manage to spend my snow day (yes it SNOWED in El Paso) scanning in some documents, which I will be posting this coming week.

And on to this week’s favorite finds:

• I’ve really been enjoying everyone’s Advent Calendar posts. I loved Heather Kuhn Roelker’s post about Santa Claus – he kind of creeped me out as a kid too.
• I don’t think I have any famous artists in my family tree – or if I do, I sure didn’t get those genes.  I draw stick people – and not very well!  I loved the post Mini Bio: Carrie York, Minneapolis Artist over at GeneaMania.  It would be nice to have some of these family heirlooms!!!
• The 112th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is up at Creative Gene– and it’s all about “An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving“. The next edition is “A Charles Dickens Christmas” and submissions are due by January 1st.
• Tonight’s edition of Geneabloggers Radio is entitled “Genealogy Gift Guide”.  Maybe I should make my husband listen to this one?  He’s always saying that I’m SOOOO hard to buy for and I don’t believe it. 🙂
• Marian had some great tips on preparing for a genea-trip.  I confess that I’ve made a few not-so-prepared trips and have wasted precious time.
• Heather Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy had a great post about Pearl Harbor – with precious interviews.  and we got to hear the final twist to “My Dad’s College Paper”. 🙂

And a few pictures from my week…

Yes, this would be the miniature snowman my daughter made with our inch of snow. 🙂  He is now living in our freezer in front of the ground beef, because all of our snow melted.

Have you ever tried to get a family photo done??  I’ve been so busy taking pictures of other people’s families these past couple of weeks (everyone wants Christmas card pics), but I finally decided that I needed to get a picture of my own family.  I set up the tripod and put the timer on.  It was easier said than done.  What a comedy of errors!!  Trying to get 7 people to look at the camera all at one time – with no one actually behind the camera- was interesting.  Which do you think we should put on the front of our Christmas card?? 🙂

Yeah, I think we might be trying this again!

What a busy week!  I didn’t get much genealogy done this week, because I did 5 photo shoots!! My computer time this week was spent editing photos instead of doing research.  I’m not a professional photographer (far from it!) but I have been taking family photos of friends in my neighborhood – mostly for Christmas cards.  It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve gotten the chance to get some practice on people that actually want their pictures taken.  My kids have learned to run when I pull out the camera. 🙂

I fully intend on actually blogging and researching this week!!

On to my favorite finds….

• Have you checked out Historypin?   It’s so fascinating to me.  I’d love to try adding a few of my pictures to this site!!  Have any of you done this yet?
• Registration is open for the 2012 NGS Conference in Cincinnati this May.  I would really love to go, but we’re going to be preparing for a move in June and my husband is in class – which means I have no babysitter for a week.  Last year’s conference worked out perfectly for me  – we were in the middle of a move from Savannah to El Paso and it happened to be in Charleston.  Perfect timing!  This year, not so much.  I think I’ll have to hold out for another one, closer to home and at a more convenient time. 🙁
• I’m really enjoying reading everyone’s Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories posts.  I might jump in here and there throughout the month as I feel inspired.
• Greta is going to be posting an ornament a day instead of the advent calendar (since she already participated for 2 yrs).  I love collecting ornaments from different places we’ve lived and am excited to see what treasures she has on her tree. 🙂
• Heather Rojo, of Nutfield Genealogy, posted a treasure in her father’s college paper on the Underground Railroad in MA.  
• I loved the old picture of school recess in Copperopolis over at Family History with Lineagekeeper.  Old school pictures mesmerize me for some reason.  And I love to say “Copperopolis” – what a fun name! 🙂

And a few pictures I’d like to share from our trip to the zoo this week (it was warm enough for T-shirts!)…