HAPPY THANKSGIVING

We're in Raymond with Paul's family. We've eaten, gone for a walk and now we are getting ready to watch a video of Toby, Maggie and Jeanne's birthday party in 1986 - Oops, gotta go for now. More later.
Here it is the next day already. We're getting ready to go to North Conway to do a little shopping. While everyone is showering and getting dressed, I'll take a few minutes to work on this. Paul and I stayed at a motel down the road, but Toby stayed here with everyone. Apparently they had a rousing game of Taboo after we left last night. They were still playing when we got here but in an informal way - I think they all did sleep in between.
The video we watched was adorable. Toby was 3, his cousin Maggie was 1 - her birthday is two days before his - and Aunt Jeanne was 32. We all looked pretty young and the kids were great. Toby got a little robot thing called Kasey that you put tapes in and it would sing and talk. I had forgotten about that. It had an obnoxious voice that could be very grating, but he really loved it.
Michelle and Mike have a beautiful house here on the top of Pismire Mountain. The view is just breathtaking and the sunset yesterday was spectacular. It's very restful, even with lots of family activities going on all around. Michelle sends a big Hello! to her friends Terry and Sheila.

Time to head over to NH. Hope you are all having as much fun as I am.
Love
Betsy

Some Questions

Hi Everyone,
My computer is still out of commission but it's at the shop and it looks like they may be able to fix it. I'm still hoping for a new one, but we'll see. Anyway, since I'll be unable to post this weekend, I'll get one out now. I thought I would ask a couple of questions to see if we can get this thing livened up a little.
First of all, I'd like to hear about some of the families we haven't gotten news about yet - What are Aimee and Jessica doing? How about Tyler and Josh? and Peter's kids. Actually some of you cousins haven't shared much about yourselves either.
My other question is what is everyone doing for Thanksgiving? We are going to Raymond (Me) to Paul's sister Michelle's house and will spend a couple of days down there. In recent years, we've all gone to North Conway on Friday to do some Christmas shopping and hang out. We missed that part last year, so I'm looking forward to it this year. Toby will come down with us and then go to his girlfriends in Kennebunk for the rest of the weekend. It's always lots of fun and I can't wait.
I've been trying to think of some family trivia and haven't come up with much, but here's one (hopefully one of you will come up with something better):
What good things to eat could you find growing in Grammy's back yard when you were a kid? There are probably different answers depending on how old you are - Uncle Kenny and Uncle Frank will have too many answers to write down- but I'm thinking of three things.
Well, it's time to finish things up here for the week and get ready to go home. I hope you all have a great weekend. I think we are actually supposed to have 2 days without rain. Hooray! and y'all didn't do very well with the "go blue" thoughts last weekend, so please try a little harder this weekend, will you? :-)
Betsy

Another Rainy Day in Maine

It's raining again, and I'm pretty sick of it. Only one of my windshield wipers works - fortunately it's the one on the driver side - and we haven't had a chance to get the broken one fixed. I think I've needed them every day since it broke.
I really enjoyed my day off on Friday. I spent much of it with Toby. We went to Bangor and checked out the new L.L. Bean outlet and went to lunch. Then we went grocery shopping. It's always a good day when Mom buys food for the boy. I often have nostalgic moments when I miss my little boy, but I do enjoy spending time with the adult he has become. We still have many similar interests, and don't have much trouble finding things to talk about. When I don't spend too much time nagging him, we have a pretty good time. Of course, he does sometimes need a good nagging!
I noticed that this blog is now too big for one page so if you want to see the earlier posts you have to click on the individual posts or on an earlier month - well October in this case. The first post "Welcome Family" does have quite a few comments including a recent one from Peter's son Michael. And I'm glad to see that Karen has joined us.
This morning when I was combing my hair, I noticed it is starting to look like Aunt Phoebe's - not quite so coarse, but with the gray and the way it was laying it made me think of her and that made me think of being in the kitchen at Grams while Aunt Mill was there pin curling Aunt Phoebe's hair, and that made me think of giving Aunt Mill permanents. I only did it a few times, but it was fun. Wouldn't she holler when I put the cold lotion on. I guess it's not just music that brings back family memories.
Gotta go
More later
Betsy

Computer Woes

Well, our old computer refused to turn on last night so I guess we are going to have to give in and buy a new one. I'm not sure when that will happen, so I'm going to post something today rather than tomorrow on my day off, as planned.
I'm happy to see more of you joining in the fun. Peter and Rick, welcome aboard. Seeing your posts today helped bring me out of my post-election funk of yesterday - well, that and the prospect of a long weekend, of course.
Anyway, back to the computer. Our computer has been giving us trouble for some time, and about a year ago, Paul decided to reformat the hard drive to try to make it last a bit longer. You are probably wondering what this has to do with you and why you should care, so I will explain. He knew I had my genealogy information all in there so he copied it all to a zip disk - should have been a great move, but after reinstalling Family Tree Maker, I wasn't able to bring up the files. I'm sure they are still there, and someone who knows how can bring them up, but in the meantime, I have only paper files which are not necessarily up dated. If I have to I can recreate the database, and would probably make it more accurate, and would cite sources better if I did (I've learned alot since I started 20+ years ago) but I'd rather not have to do that if I can help it. Hopefully when we get the new computer, we'll take the old one to our favorite computer geek and he will be able to get those files off that zip disk as well. Hopefully. I know several of you have seen the book that I made for Aunt Jeannette of the Dubay family (and Grammy Dubay's Sirois family) and would like copies. I may have to borrow the book from her and make photocopies for now - even for myself. One of these days I'll get my act together and really get organized - I'm sure of it :-) If you have any specific questions about family history or would like me to share some of it here, let me know. I'll do what I can.
All for now - Hope everyone enjoys a nice (long) fall weekend.
Betsy
and don't forget "Go Blue!"

The Porch

Paul and I went for a "Sunday drive" today and we had a nice day. We went with our friends Dave and Diane up to Mattagamon Lake so that Paul and Dave could do some work on a friends camp up there. It's where they go ice fishing each winter and usually a couple of other times during the year. It's a nice camp, though you can tell it's a "guy place," and a work in progress. There is a nice little beach out front and a great view of water, trees, and mountains. We went though places like Stacyville, and Sherman, and Patten, and by Shin Pond along the way and had great views of Mt. Katahdin with snow on top. Dave is a gadget guy and has XM radio, so we were listening to music on the way up. He likes the old country and western stuff, but, I think for me, he played some 60's music for awhile (until they played too many Beatle songs - who ever heard of such a thing - and then we went to 50's) and quite a few of the songs brought back memories of places and the past. I don't always know why a certain song reminds me of a certain place but one today transported me to the porch at Grammy's. Thinking of the porch always makes me happy anyway, and this was another good memory. The song was Neil Diamond's "Girl, you'll be a woman soon" and I remember being on the far end of the porch, away from where the adults usually sat. I don't remember what we were listening to, but I think it was a record player, rather than a radio. Uncle Archie and gang must have been here, because I remember Dale being there, and we listened to that song, and other Neil Diamond songs too, I think. I must have been 12 or 13. That's it, just a flash, but hearing that song put me right back there for just a few seconds. The porch was my favorite place at Grammy's. I loved it in the summertime when all the adults would sit there talking and we kids would be running around playing in the yard until well after dark. I can remember Mom and Grammy speaking French while sitting out there. They must have done so in the house, too - but I don't remember it. I liked it when people walking by would stop and talk for a few minutes. When I would walk or ride my bike down to visit Grammy and Aunt Phoebe, we would sit on the porch and have tea and I would feel quite adult. It was a great porch. I don't know if John and Duffy use it, but I hope so. Ok, I'm getting too sappy for my own good. Hope to hear from some of the rest of you. Come on, now, don't be shy.
Betsy