Family Reunion

I would have posted last night, but I was suffering from a near-comatose condition from having taken the "less drowsy" formula of Dramamine. I hate to think what would have happened had I taken the regular formula. Anyway, the plane rides were great since all I did was sleep from the time I sat in the chair until we landed.

The reunion was great! Paul has an interesting family genealogical chart. His grandmother, Theresa Sundal, married Henry G. Dybvig. Theresa's sister, Agnes Sundal, married Henry's cousin, Henry N. Dybvig. So 2 sisters married 2 cousins. The Henry G. family had 7 children, and the Henry N. family had 11 children, so that made for a lot of relatives. This reunion mostly consisted of the Henry G. family. Of these 7 children, all were there who are living except one who lives in a nursing home in Dayton, but many people were able to get over there and visit him.


In this picture is Eugene, Elaine, Talman's widow Carol, Philip, Roger, and Stanley (my father-in-law). Stan is the oldest at 89 years old.

Two sisters from the Henry N. side of the family were also there -- Rhoda and Ruth.

Many of Paul's cousins were also able to attend the reunion and even 2 of the their children. Below is a picture of the whole group.



The highlight of the reunion this year was not a bath and massage in the hot springs (another story for another blog) or anything nearly as funny. What we did do was a bus tour of the Dayton area to see many of the houses the Dybvig family had lived in over the years, some of the schools, and even the cemetery where family members are buried. Grandpa Dybvig was a patent attorney in Dayton, and apparently based upon his financial fortunes or misfortunes (the great depression, etc.) the family moved to a lot of different houses. We got a lot of history and interesting stories from the siblings as they revisited their old homes. Several of the siblings had also written up short memoirs that provided interesting anecdotes.

We also were able to sneak in a quick visit with Paul's cousin from his mom's side, Doug, and his family. We had not seen them for 8 years, and it was wonderful to get reconnected with that side of the family again and learn some family history.

A highlight of Friday morning was the trip to Dorothy Lane Market, which is a specialty market known for its "killer brownies." Of course, we had to sample one just to make sure they were as good as we remembered. They were! A "killer brownie" is made from multiple layers of chocolate brownie, rich caramel, and chopped pecans. That certainly is killer. Can you imagine the sugar content?!! It was very good, though.

One of the granddaughters who attended this reunion has volunteered to organize a reunion for next year. We will look forward to attending that reunion.

Hmmm... Am I Pregnant?

I knew that title would get your attention! This picture reminds me of the women who don't know they're pregnant and give birth in the toilet. I think one of the little chickens wondered what was going on and just squatted and plopped out the egg right there in the dirt. Perhaps next time she'll know what's going on and lay the egg in the coop.

R.I.P.

Today we mourn the death of one of our pet spiders. I'm sure all our family members will be happy about this since they only have one spider now to worry about crawling on them at night -- okay, one of the black spiders. There are still plenty of daddy longleg spiders to crawl on them at night.

I think we may have inadvertently led to the death of the spider. Here's what happened. A few days ago, we saw one of the spiders caught between the curtain and the lining of the curtain. Being the conscientious pet owners that we are, we rescued the spider and put it back up in the window track where it lives (on the same side we found it). For those who don't know about our spiders, one lives on the left side of the large window in our living room, and the other spider lives on the right side. I think perhaps we put the rescued spider back on the wrong side of the window, though, and into the home of the spider that already lives on that side. The reason I say this is because last night I saw a live spider come out at night, and the dead spider was unceremoniously plopped on the bottom window track just beneath it. I think maybe they had a fight to the death.

Ah well, it was probably some deadly species of spider anyway. Now if only I would vacuum up all the daddy longlegs.

Golden Barrel Cactus

Paul tried something new this year. For the 20 years that we have lived in this house we have had a beautiful golden barrel cactus in the front yard (now with a pup that is also quite large). So this year we decided to try to grow some new cactus plants from seed.











The first step was to gather some seed pods from the top of the cactus. Each of the seed pods had hundreds of seeds in them.


We soaked the seeds overnight, then used an eyedropper to pick up the seeds in the water and deposit them in the soil. Then we put the tray under the grow lights and waited to see what would happen.







About a month later we finally saw the first signs of life.





After another 2 weeks, we could clearly see the needles. The little cacti are now about a centimeter tall, and it is time to transplant them to their own little pots where they will live for another couple years before being ready to transplant outside.

I Spy

Many years ago, I heard a radio broadcast about looking for God's presence in everyday life. This could include answers to prayers, evidence of God's care, help in doing God's work, or unusual timing, and they are called "I spies." Today I had an "I spy." I was craving a BLT, but I had no tomatoes, and it was too far to go to town just for tomatoes. Then, just around lunch time, Paul went out to water the garden and to his great surprise found a ripe tomato buried deep within the plant, our first of the year. Mere coincidence or "I spy," I'm not sure, but thank you Dear Father for letting me have a BLT today.

Chicken Egg Update

Just a followup on the young chicks. We have gotten only 2 eggs from the little ones. As you can see, the first eggs are much smaller than a full-sized egg. The green egg is from one of the Ameraucana chickens.




Another characteristic of the first eggs are that they seem to have double yolks more often. The bowl contains a double-yolk egg and one regular-sized egg. They taste the same, though -- very delicious.