The Games Have Begun

The winter Olympics . . . but one game is done -- Super Bowl 52 -- the Patriots came close but . . . so now PyeongChang has begun. Curling even made the spotlight with more to come. Figure skating, downhill skiing, and other sports are in full swing.
The opening ceremonies were fun to watch and they seemed shorter in length than I remember from the last winter events. It is hard to know what events to record as they repeat them. It is a good diversion from other happenings in our world e.g. flu, weather, & politics.

So for the next two weeks or so, our spare TV viewing will concentrate on PyeongChang and the Winter Olympics. Some politics enter into the equation but looking at the early medal count it almost looks like my DNA Ethnicity chart . . .

The display of drones in formation was amazing -- technology changes how we can entertain and make things exciting to observe.

While Korea was covered with snow this week, so were many other places as well -- including a very familiar (to our family anyway) house in Chicago.

To the right is a picture of our Grandparent's home, Dayton & Hildred Bumgardner, at 2521 N Bernard St in Chicago, taken this past week.

My brother Marv had some friends visiting in California this week and while chatting found our they had a son who lived in Chicago -- just a couple of blocks away (in Logan Square) so the friends called and asked him to shoot a current photo, which he did, again, technology.

As I look at the picture I can "feel" the cold outside, but remember the "warmth" from the inside. I'm glad that Marv shared the photo -- thanks.

So we might as well think about Christmas since we are seeing that type of weather -- back in the Midwest and other spots in the country -- not in our neck-of-the-woods though. here this past week it again has been at or near the 80s.

Gail has powered through the four Christmacy type needlepoints that she just finished. These happen to be Christmas Coasters and may wind up to be gift items for next season -- unless we choose to not part with them once they are finished with plastic sleeves.

The project went well and Gail enjoyed working on them -- but now she is waiting for other projects that were ordered but have not arrived as yet.

It used to be fairly easy when Gail needed another project -- we could just drive a couple of blocks and make selections from a beautiful store right in downtown Healdsburg -- but that store eventually moved to Windsor and then became "online" only.

The closest needlepoint store now is in San Rafael, which is over a couple of hours round trip from here -- so we usually order via the Internet.

To the right is not the leading medal winners at the Olympics, but rather a depiction of the countries from which my ancestors came.

And the red enclosed area is where most of them landed when they came into the United States.

As I mentioned last week, I was surprised at Finland since I had not heard of that prior, but Scandinavia in general I had.

I'm sure that as more and more people are DNA tested (we sent in our cheek swabs to the fourth testing company this week) there will be more and more answers as to how they connect to us genealogically as well as genetically.

And by the way, the DNA testing results are not exactly the same from each company. It will be interesting to see the results from the fourth -- in a few weeks.

So, our ancestors came from the purple regions and first wound up in the red region -- from there, all across the United States.

Since our family has a high percentage of Scandinavians represented, we might have to rethink some holiday menus. And in some states (Minnesota for one) there is already a major focus on lutefisk as a Christmas dinner for example.

I always thought of lutefisk as a cruel joke of some sort, but maybe now it is worth taking a peek at -- then I saw the meme to the left.

I have to say that it is probably true -- but in a way, you are getting twice the bang for your buck.

I'll think about it -- okay, I have. I can't imagine the odor remaining in the whole house after a lutefisk preparation party like what we see with the making of tamales . . . those Norwegians and maybe Finnish as well, I don't know.

Don't forget Valentine's Day coming up this Wednesday.

Maybe that would be a good day to try out the "Lutefisk & Chocolate" theme.

Heavy on the chocolate I'm sure. We do enjoy a small treat almost every day -- and some of it is chocolate. So far it has not included lutefisk.

So, that is a bit of our week,

See you all "in a few" !