Flag Day, Father's Day & Redfish Lake

Talk about "groundhog week",  this was a week for us of  enjoying the moment. I think we only left the house once, maybe twice. The weather too fit the occasion. We had the a/c on several days even into the evening when it actually was cooler outside than inside . . . we seemed to be enjoying having "nothing" pending to do, which allowed us to "work" on our own projects.

The yard as well took on it's own progress:

Besides the flowers there are fruit items as well -- lemons and apples, we usually get plenty of both.

Recalling a Favorite Vacation Trip

We are not planning on going away on vacation this year -- but thinking back a few years we had one of the very best vacations ever! And I was reminded of that when I received an email from Gail's brother-in-law, Gary who along with Laurii lives in Stanley, Idaho.

The email was announcing a new webcam showing Redfish Lake in the shadows of the Sawtooth Mountains:

Check out the view by visiting >>>   Redfish Lake

And checkout the collage recalling our trip there:

I have to say that the experience of being at Redfish Lake and the surrounding area was really great. We also had a sort of a mini-reunion for Gail's side of the family with a few from my side as well. I wouldn't mind repeating that trip at all . . .

And thank you Gary for sending the link to view the lake hopefully year 'round . . .

Born on this Day . . . 207 years ago

That seems sooo long ago and the times were so different -- the war of 1812 had not even started as yet. But in 1806 my (our) Great Great Grandmother, Sarah Olive Rider was born on June 15th in Bath County, Virginia.

Not far away I'm sure, George Franklin Bumgardner (I've written about him recently) was growing up as well. If you check out his story in the previous post, recall that he and three Rider boys rode horseback over 600 miles one way to Iowa to scout out potential farmland, they did that in 1829 -- George upon his return wound up marrying a Rider girl -- Sarah.

I can only imagine the stresses of a trip like that. George and Sarah ultimately had ten children, two or three before leaving Virginia and then one on the way to Iowa -- William -- in Indiana (maybe Evensville).

They were one of the founding families of Muscatine, Iowa. From Muscatine the Bumgardners spread out to several cities in Iowa. We visited some of those cities on a trip now almost 10 years ago . . .

Dino and the Beach Ball

This week we did not have pool visitors and I think Dino missed that. The first part of the week was a bit cloudy though with even some of the loudest thunder that I have heard since childhood in the Midwest. There was a huge number of lightning shots as well . . .

Dino for some reason is attracted to the ball every time he goes outside.  This is actually the second ball as I made the mistake of throwing the first one outside of the pool and Dino somehow did manage to sink his teeth into it. Now he just lays by the edge of the water and watches as the ball travels around the pool and seemingly always goes by him and taunts him a bit -- but he doesn't go into the water after the ball.

Feelin' Patriotic

Before January of this year and before Guillain-Barre, I usually flew the flag every day, developing a habit as I retrieved the paper each morning. More recently with that habit broken I have not flown the flag as often and as a matter of fact hardly ever -- but yesterday I did retrieve the paper and I did put out the flag.

Only during the day did I find out it was "Flag Day":

I am glad that I remembered. In our neighborhood many homes fly the flag a lot and it brings back memories of growing up when my father put the flag out on "those special days". Presidents Wilson and Coolidge recommended June 14th as Flag Day, but it was Harry S Truman who made it official in 1949.

Feelin' Lucky

In the past few weeks I looked forward to "Webinar Wednesday" at Legacy Family Tree. They have great webinars where I have learned a lot. But this week was special -- two webinars, one on Wednesday and one on Friday -- I was lucky!

On Wednesday we heard the presentation from Tom Kemp regarding Genealogy Bank and the available newspapers that they offer and how to make the most of searching those papers. Genealogy Bank has the most newspapers digitized and is continually adding more -- I love browsing through and finding tidbits on family from our tree . . .

On Friday we heard a lively presentation from Thomas MacEntee on "research in New Jersey". His presentations are always good and there is always a ton of material that is meaningful and usable.

From both webinars I found myself using what I had just learned in practical ways. I searched many old newspapers in several cities where I could find folks from our tree living there and their everyday experiences came to light often through newspaper coverage.

New Jersey does play a role in the HILES line but I have not gotten "hard evidence" as yet -- hopefully with the searching tips from the webinar I will be able to uncover some proofs.

And Finally . . .

Father's day. An interesting day that I thought has been around for a long time -- not so long as I thought.
Mother's Day has been celebrated since 1914 while Father's Day only since President Johnson made it an officially recognized day in 1966.

So -- Happy Father's Day to all . . . in the above are two Fathers from our tree -- Gail's and mine. The pictures were both taken early in their lives and it is interesting that they both were dressed so nicely and to me it shows -- a good upbringing.

Also looking at the pictures it is interesting to note that we have the luxury of seeing our Fathers before they experienced the many things coming to them, just as I'm sure others will be able to do with us . . .

It's burger night . . .

That's a bit of our week, see you all in a few.