Rains, Yes -- Hail, No

So here we are on day 62 of the year 2018 already. It is a rainy, cold. Saturday morning -- we love it! There is something about a rainy Saturday that is refreshing. A chance to stay inside and enjoy the warmth -- hopefully.

While we did NOT have hail in our neighborhood, others did. And we have had some before. Even with these three days of rain, the "d" word is being bandied about and that is unsettling.

We have had on-again, off-again rain spells with some intermittent sunshine. It isn't like the Nor'easters we see on the news and thank goodness for that. I can not imagine going through some of those storms -- again.

We are getting some snowpack in the mountainous areas -- great for skiing. I was "forced" to get rid of my skis a few years back along with my bowling ball too, oh well. There's always YouTube.

What do you do inside during a rainy spell -- work on a great puzzle -- which we did, only to finish it . . .

This was truly a fun puzzle and a real challenge at points. As you can see it does not have the traditional type edges.

The colors in this puzzle are brilliant and made it interesting throughout the two weeks or so that we worked on it.

The artist that created this work has several others and that may be something that we will do in the near future. We have another puzzle in-the-works first . . .

After I finished the post last week, we watched the final events of the Olympics -- and I have to say that the event of all the Olympics, that we enjoyed the most, was Curling.

And -- they won gold for the first time ever. While we do not totally understand all the strategies and moves -- we did enjoy the pace of the game.

We heard about the women's curling, but we did not get to view it on TV -- if it was even presented.


So, we will have to wait for another four years before seeing curling again. Time goes fast though and it will be here before you know it . . .

Of course, some of the other activities we enjoyed this week included needlepoint for Gail and working on family history things for me.

Above are some examples of charts that I worked on. The one in the middle top -- hard to read -- actually depicts the descendants (some) of Walter Pratt, who is listed in my tree as my 15th Great Grandfather.

The ancestors going back that far have yet to be totally proven with facts -- but are fun to look at and just may prove to be accurate. Directly below that chart is a "pile" of related folks, both of mine and of Gail's. Any name with a blue line on the bottom is my direct ancestor and any with a green line is an ancestor of Gail's.

So, what to watch on TV that is related to genealogy? On BYU TV tomorrow there is the returning series "Relative Race".

It features four couples -- color-coded clothes -- that are given updates via a "flip" phone that direct them to not-previously-known-relatives located across the U.S.

It is a race and the winning couple collects $50,000 along with meeting those newly found relatives.

It is fun to share the feeling that each couple has as they meet their daily goals.

A few years ago, we might even have felt like trying out for the show . . . that ship has sailed though.

And lastly, I think I'm understanding more about my father's dream that of course never materialized for him -- or us:

To the left is probably a depiction of what he had in mind all those many years ago and with the many trips looking for that.

This was his "Come Good Home" that was prevalent in his mind.

We did visit many farms over a period of years but did not ever make a purchase.

This week I listened to a webinar on the subject of researching German Farms.

It was pointed out that in Germany, farms were the backbone of their society, pretty much like the American society of years past.

And, since recently finding out -- pretty much for sure -- that our ancestors came from Germany, that farm instinct had carried to the male Hiles line and was ingrained in the being of male Hiles' like my father -- my mother always said "he was happiest when he was poking around in the soil" or something to that effect.

I am anxious to identify all the "German" ancestors and to make the connections. It would be fun to identify the farms associated with Hiles' ancestors -- oh well, so much to do . . . so little time.

That's a bit of our week. See you all "in a few" !  😏