Since our house dates back to pre-historic times, I thought it would be nice to spruce it up a bit.  Our house is really old, not quite pre-historic…but old.  See many of our friends that purchased their first home went with the trusty “new construction” homes or at least homes younger than 15 years.  Not us, we went with a house that was built in the 1940′s.  We were looking for something with some character something other than what a new construction home had to offer.  And we certainly got character!  There are definite benefits to a new construction home: minimal dust (compared to our pounds per day), a garage, a two car wide driveway, windows that are not painted shut, “new” wiring, and so much more. Don’t get me wrong we love our house, and although there are times when we think that having a “newer” house would be easier we wouldn’t trade this one in for anything else. We love our home.

I decided I wanted to “update” all the light switches in our home.  Like the wiring in our house, many of the original switches are still being used. Many of the switches have four sometimes five coats of paint; each layer trying to mask the one before, and in the groves where words use to be years of grime, dirt, and dust have accumulated to form what seems to be a shadow effect.  So instead of making Derek listen to my gripes and watch me constantly scrub down every switch in the house with 409 & a magic eraser once a week I decided to do something about it.  Plus in an older home with a 1970′s addition like ours some cohesiveness, even if just in the light switches, would be nice.  (P.S. – 1970′s additions do not hold true to the original styling of a 1940′s home)

living/front porch

kitchen/side porch

So, like my father and his father before him, I took to working with electricity.  You see both my grandfather and father are brilliant men; both men are electrical engineers.  My grandfather worked for NASA, and my father has worked in designing 9-1-1 emergency response systems for a well-known communications company.

end result

Having my sweet and patient husband show me how to re-wire a light switch, and supervise my doing of the second; I proceeded to follow in my father and grandfather’s footsteps, and work with electricity.  I must say…I am quite proud of myself. Making certain not to start a fire I double and triple checked every wire placement, and connection I made, and I still replaced every light switch in our house in just a few hours, and no fires yet.

How ’bout them apples!

Have you ever watched the Simpson’s and wondered what it would be like to have Homer as a father?  Well, here is your chance.  Tom Tom, who makes portable GPS car navigation systems, recently released a download that doesn’t exactly put Homer’s name on your birth certificate, but it will make him that little voice of reason and direction in your head car.  Yes, that’s right.  You can now have Homer Simpson guide you on a long summer journey, or simply have him direct you to the nearest donut shop.

“Oh sweet, sweet chocolate eclair…I hear you calling my name.”

“Homer, take me to the donuts!”

This past Sunday my dad turned 60.  My mom and sister wanted to throw my dad a surprise party at my parent’s house.  Simply due to the fact that my dad lives at the house at which we were throwing the party, it made it that much harder to coordinate.  But with a little effort my sister, brother, mother, and I were able to successfully surprise my dad.  See, about 30 years ago my mom tried to throw my dad a surprise party, but my dad not knowing what was in store for his birthday somehow made it back to the house before any of the guest arrived.  (Way to go dude!)  My mother swore she would never throw him another surprise party….ever.  Well, I guess she changed her mind.

The party turned out perfect.  I have no clue as to how many people showed up, but I do know that the house was packed.  Many thanks to my new in-laws for helping with some of the food, helping set-up, and clean-up the party.  My sister, Stephanie made an awesome cake for my dad in the shape of his boat.  She nailed it on her 1st shot.  Hey, if the whole becoming a pharmacist doesn’t pan out she may have a future in the cake design industry.

I was keeping an eye out for the guest of honor.  I was there for a while….shouldn’t have started quite so early.

Recently I have been getting into researching my family tree.  My husband introduced me to a website called Geni that is part family tree,  part social network.  Geni is free!  My dad, grandfather, cousins, etc. are all using it.

Users can build their family tree through the simple colorful interface. Relatives who are added to the tree can join Geni and add other relatives. Everyone in the tree has a profile which shows more about them and enables other family members to stay in touch with them.  Families can work together to build profiles for common ancestors.  Family members can also share photos, videos, events, discussions, and more.  A family timeline shows the history of everyone in the family.  What’s kind of cool is that Geni was founded by former executives and employees of PayPal, eGroups, eBay, and Tribe…so these people really know how to manage large amounts of data & keep it safe.

Just last week my grandpa emailed me (yes…my grandpa emails) to tell me that he mailed me a copy of the direct decedents of the DAEMS family which is his great grandmother’s branch.

My Grandpa

My grandpa said that two of his cousins, in the Netherlands, researched this some years back.  The information he sent me goes all the way back to the 1670′s.  I was astounded at how far back they were able to go.  I really lucked out with this, because my father and grandparents immigrated to the US back in 1950 from the Netherlands (Holland).  The furthest back I would have been able to find, with US records, would be the immigration of my grandparents & father in 1950.  So to have relatives in Europe to do some of the digging for me was wonderful…I would not have had a clue where to start looking over there.

Since I have been hunting down info about my ancestors I decided to also do some research on Ancestry.com.  This site is great for researching vital records, as long as you don’t mind shelling out a few clams.  I decided to sign-up for just one month and to see what I can find, and to my surprise I located the manifest to the ship my father and grandparents came over from Holland on.  How awesome it that!?!  They even had a picture of the ship and a brief history of it.  Check it out…

S.S. Volendam

S.S. Volendam Manifest

If you have ever thought about looking into your ancestry, give Geni or Ancestry.com a try.  Invite some family members to join your tree, and watch it grow!