I love my 3-day weekends!

I had a great weekend and got lots of things done - how productive is that? Friday I went with Amber to get Vince his christening outfit. We met Missy at Westroads, so grandma got a chance to spend some time with us. Amber is learning the joys of motherhood - Vince had a total blowout while we were shopping - at least it didn't go up his back! Matt did that to me one time after we waited an hour for the photographer. They called out name and I realized he smelled really, really bad - it must have taken me half an hour to clean that kid up. Needless to say, the pictures didn't get taken either. It was fun shopping with the little pumpkin butt - and he got the cutest little outfit, white of course, knickers with a long sleeve shirt, paisley patterned vest and tie. He's going to look so cute! Amber gets confirmed on Saturday too. They're having an Easter vigil at 8 p.m. so she's getting confirmed and Vince is getting baptized. One of her friends loaned her a book comparing Catholics to Mormons. Interesting, but I always wonder why people who aren't LDS write books explaining the LDS faith. As Steve would say, ya gotta wonder.

Steve got back on Friday - he was home by the time I got here, so we went to Cabelas since his new scope was in, then we had dinner at Cracker Barrel. I love that place. I love their meatloaf, but unfortunately they had run out, so the chicken-fried chicken was a great substitute. They always give you so much, I left stuffed, and still had half the chicken and potatoes left. The corned beef and cabbage looked great, but I'm not a big fan of carrots or cabbage, so I skipped on that. Let the Irish have it today!

Saturday there was a gun show in Hastings, so guess who had to go? Actually I went along, since the Adams County Historical Society is located in the museum. I figured I could do some genealogy while the guys were the gun show. It was a very productive day! I got copies of quite a bit of marriage information on my dad's side. Most of them were married in Clay County, so I couldn't actually get the marriage licenses, but I did get all the information related to the marriages, including parents' names of both the bride and groom, which I didn't have for some female relatives. I have to say a big THANK YOU to Karen and the other volunteer, I feel bad that I don't remember her name, but they helped me find information on my mom's side of the family that I hadn't been able to locate at all! I'm glad they love a challenge! For years I'd been searching for my Grandma Vosseler's parents to no avail. I had the names, Ira Halderman and Theresa Thompson (sp?), but couldn't find any information anywhere, even birth dates! We found the on the 1910 census, and then were able to find Ira's family on an earlier census. One reason I couldn't find them before is I was looking for Ira and Theresa. Apparently, Theresa wasn't Theresa.... She's Mary T., which I'm assuming is Mary Theresa. We found out that her mother was from Denmark and her father from Germany, but that's all we could find on her besides her date of birth. I found that my great-aunt Della was born in Pennsylvania, which I never knew. That's basically all I found, but hey, it was something! I've looked for most of about 6 years now and haven't found that much. I still have no idea what happened to Ira after he and my great-grandmother divorced. She ended up putting my grandmother and her two sisters in an orphanage, and, according to family stories I've heard, great-grandmother Mary had surgery and died from blood poisoning. Who knows if that's fact or fiction? I don't even know where it may have happened, but at least now I have a birth date for her also! Woo hoo! I actually thought about calling my "mother" to tell her, but luckily my good sense took over before I acted on that impulse! By the time we got home I was on call, working to help a co-worker, so we didn't do anything else. The dogs were very glad to see us. Mom and Bob came over to let them out, but being stuck in a kennel or small room all day isn't their idea of having a good time, they were very happy to see us!

Sunday I didn't do much of anything. I went to enter my new genealogy information into my Family Tree Maker program and found that my entire database of names was gone! That was more than a little annoying! I had over 1700 names on it. I got the 2008 copy of the program this winter and just installed it several weeks ago, but hadn't made any changes or actually used it since then. I'm thinking that for some reason the update erased all my information. I don't know how it happened and I've never had that happen with an update before, but I don't know what else would have done it. I have backup disks - somewhere. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at keeping track of the disks when I back stuff up. I also have my Personal Ancestry File that I should be able to import. I just need the time to do it now. Once I get started working on that stuff I hate to stop, I can do it all day!

Tonight I'm back to work. Sigh. I could use a nice, long vacation. Away from barking dogs. I love my dogs, but they're really getting on my nerves lately. Seven may mean completeness in the Bible, but it just means craziness in my house!

Later