Ancestry.com DNA kit

   For Christmas this year, I got a DNA kit from Ancestry.com. I have been working on my family tree for years. Not many people in my family are interested in knowing their backgrounds because "it doesn't matter," but I would really like to know what kind of people I was related to. If possible, I would like to learn their stories.
    When I opened the package, I didn't know how involved it would be. I thought there would be some intense directions about how not to contaminate your sample. When I took everything out, there was a collection tube, a cap, a bag and a box to mail it in. The basic directions are "spit in the tube, put on the cap, shake, put in the bag, mail it back to us." Really easy (thought you did have to actually tighten the cap.) I thought about doing a little "how to video" before I read the directions. I'm sorry I decided against the glamour pictures of my depositing my spit into the small tube for you. I just know that you're all intelligent people.
      I sent it in a few weeks ago and should get the results in 6-8 weeks. Ancestry.com is cool enough to actually confirm that they received your sample, as well as having a tracking number on the box so you can track it yourself too. I anticipate that I will have lots of Irish in me. There is rumor that I have some native American blood on my mom's side, but only a little. (Anyone know how to look up genealogy for the Passamaquoddy tribe in Maine?) I haven't found any proof of that yet. I would be pretty shocked to find background outside of Europe. Oh, remember that book I wrote about- The Greatest Knight (both of them..lol). Well, I have one ancestor that did do a ton of research and William Marshall, the knight the book is about, it in her research. She went WAY back and on multiple sides so I'll have to take a month and just follow her info from me back.
   Here are some other mysteries. If anyone has any genealogical tips on how to get past these hurdles, please share. I'm getting close to hiring someone to help me.
1) My maternal great grandmother- died shortly after giving birth to my grandmother.  When she died, my great grandfather left his kids with other people and didn't contact my grandmother for about 50 years. The short version is, my great grandmother doesn't seem to exist other than her tombstone, marriage record, my grandmother, death record and 1 census. None of the relatives alive right now even remember her. None of the children of her siblings remember her or have any pictures. She was 1 of 13 kids, so I was wondering if she might have been an illegitimate child of one of the oldest children. (I just found out that the 13th child was actually her daughter... which was unknown by my grandmother.) Child 13s married name kept coming up associated with my grandmother's brother's name. I finally located some documents and was shocked when I figured it out. Also, child 13s dad is reported as one name, but her kids think it was my grandmother's dad. Hmmm. Ideally, I would like to show my grandmother a picture of her mom.  Some days she really wants to know about her family. Other days she is sad that she was basically given away to be raised by friends. (Who were very good to her, but she discovered in high school that she had relatives that knew about her but never told her she was related to them.)

2) My other mystery is my paternal great grandfather. I have heard 2 stories- a) he was given up for adoption as an infant. His parents came from Canada. He was dropped at an orphanage in Superior, Wi. He grew up there and really disliked it. He later joined the military and lied about his age so he could be enlisted early. He changed his surname.  b) His parents died when he was a teenager. He changed his surname.  
     I don't know what the original surname was. I can confirm that he seemed to lie on military records because I have him coming from Superior, Wi and Ohio. I traced him back to a 1920 census, which seems to be the first time he was in Ma. I am trying to see if there is a connection to the people he was living with at the time.
     The good note is that my dad's cousin wants to know this too so maybe I will find some answers.

      I'm excited to see the results I get from Ancestry. I was a little disappointed to see that they have "26 ethnic regions"  that seemed really broad to me, but it's scientific evidence that will help point me in the right direction.  Here are the regions that the test covers. I'll let you know what I hear.

America

• Native American

Europe

• Europe East
• Europe West
• European Jewish
• Finland/Northwest Russia
• Great Britain
• Iberian Peninsula
• Ireland
• Italy/Greece
• Scandinavia

Africa

• Africa North
• Africa South-Central
  Hunter-Gatherers
• Africa Southeastern Bantu
• Benin/Togo
• Cameroon/Congo
• Ivory Coast/Ghana
• Mali
• Nigeria
• Senegal

West Asia

• Caucasus
• Middle East

Asia

• Asia Central
• Asia East
• Asia South

Pacific Islander

• Polynesia
• Melanesia

      Have you researched your genealogy? Any challenges you are running into?

A few glimpses into daily life

This weekend we had a lot of holiday activities. Here's some pictures from events lately. It has been a bit of an aggravating night so I'd like to spread some beauty around.
 David watching the live nativity at a local church (orange and gray jacket in front of pole)









 Look what we found! A giant post office safe. It's in a church hall. Yes, I know I'm a nerd. Yes, I'm proud of it.









 Matt and the boys at our Christmas tree lighting


 Our town's tree this year before being lit. It's a little.... Charlie Brown-ish this year






 That's a bit better.

 We have a festival of trees to benefit our historical society. People/companies decorate trees (with ornaments, gift cards, presents, etc) and then they raffle them off. I always lose. Someday I will win. Here are some trees (and a really creepy elf in the first one.. lol)


 Books! I was half intrigued and half upset that they ruined the books. lol Cool star though

 The church where I performed my Christmas concert on Sunday








Santa- not the best conductor. I like the enthusiasm though.


Our concert was videotaped and broadcast. If you'd like to hear it, here is the link. Sounds of Christmas Concert I don't play too much in this concert, but the music is nice.  Start at about 22 minutes. PS. Santa's violin was a prop. There was great concern. Check out what the audience sounds like at 1:59: ish 

Blessings

Based on my overwhelming response from the last post (none), I decided not to go with my original idea.  Instead I'll just check in occasionally.






Although I always try to be mindful of my blessings, I think Advent is a good time for me to slow down to prepare my heart for Christmas and to acknowledge the blessings that I have on a daily basis.
      Here are some special moments over the past few days:
1. Starting Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp with my family. The family time is as wonderful as the message and the activities.

2. The sweet and simplistic prayers of my sons. Why do we make praying so complicated sometime?

3. Today was a student's birthday. This is a student who is especially close to me. She has been singing for me for 4 years in 2 different groups, plus the musicals. I have also had her brother as a student so I have known her family for a long time. This is her last year with me.  I decided to get her a small birthday gift. So, I asked Matt to buy some candy that he has made at work. We picked out a candy cane, pecan turtles and some fudge. When I gave it to her, she was surprised that I had gotten her a gift, which was expected. When I told her that it was candy that Matt had personally made (She has met my family at concerts and has run into them a few times outside of school), she got a little teary and thanked me and told me that we made her feel "really special."  I guess that was my intention, but I didn't think it would mean THAT much to her.

4.  On my drive home tonight- rushing, as usual- I needed to stop at the post office to get something postmarked. The community is on the coast. As I rode up to the top of a hill (right by the governor's house), I was greeted by a beautiful view. The ocean was slightly choppy looking and the color of the sky was fading to the colors of dusk. What really drew my attention was the clouds, which looked like they were illuminated from below.

5.  I came home to a giant pile of mail! I will share my week of mail at the end of the week. I've been getting some great stuff. I probably won't share any of my picture cards since I won't usually put a picture up without asking permission (except my father-in-law that one time..)

Lately

      This school year has been busy- a mix of feeling a bit overscheduled and personally doing a lot of things.  I anticipate my schedule getting  a lot crazier over the next few weeks, but it should be fine if I'm conscientious about my scheduling (and if everybody allows me to be a control freak regarding time. lol Sorry in advance.). At least there are some holidays in the mix so there is some planned relaxation too.
      Here are some recent endeavors of mine.
School:
    On the negative side, I usually see all of the students for the same amount of days per rotation. This year has made 5th/6th end together, 7th ends a different day and 8th grade ends yet another time. I have found that this change is throwing me off a lot it's taking a lot of adjustment.  Hopefully, after a bunch of correcting tonight, I will be caught up and be able to keep up from there.
     On a positive note, I have started my Thanksgiving tree project. These are some  background pages that I made from watercolor paints that will eventually be cut into leaf shapes that I will write my notes on. I really like the bottom one.  My sister-in-law, Sarah, graciously offered to use her Cricut to help me with a making leaves out of some gelli-printed paper. Thanks again, Sarah!

Personally:
     This past week was full of some fun events. I got to remind my kids that we are blessed enough to help others by donating to a local toy drive. While we were there, we were given tickets to go see The Pentatonix! (For those near Boston, this was Karson, Kennedy and Salt from Mix 104.1)

We saw Abi, who was not our taste in music, but she seemed like a nice girl. Then we got to see Us the Duo, who we loved. I had never seen or heard them before. Here is a song they wrote for their wedding. They performed it live and I really enjoyed it. Both of them are extremely talented musicians and I was impressed with the different styles that they performed.

   If you don't know the Pentatonix, shame on you... here is a link to their music too! Here is a cover of an Imogen Heap song they did. Again, incredible musicians.

Oh, and while I'm spreading incredible musicianship around, did I mention Kevin, known as the beatboxer of Pentatonix? Woah..

   Then, we had Veteran's Day off. (Thanks if you are a veteran who is reading this!) I brought the kids up to Maine to visit my parents.  It was a nice time, relaxing.

   When we came home on Saturday, Tim's team won their flag football championship:

     Then we went to Boston to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday! I also got to meet my newest niece, Naomi.


Penpalling:
    I received quite a few letters over the past few weeks, including a few secret letters from the Penpalling & Letters Secret Letter Event. I am sending this one out tomorrow. Then I have a lot of writing to do!!!

Now what?
     Next week I will start working on the musical. I am also auditioning kids for a few opportunities. It is a lot of work. I'm hoping for a week free of negative parent e-mails. 
      If you celebrate Thanksgiving, do you have any special plans or traditions? The week of Thanksgiving we do a really fun volleyball tournament with the students. It's a blast!

Crafting and Reddit Secret Santa

So, anyone who knows me will know that I'm not exactly the most artistic person. Crafting sometimes scares me. I think I just like rules- rules to tell me how to do it 1) right and 2) so it looks nice. My sons made a few things at school in art that I thought were super cute. We recreated them at home and plan to give them to some friends and family. Unexpectedly, we had a ball. It was fun for me to watch each son create and to see the way they made art their own. I think I will do things like this more often.
      These are some snowman ornaments.

 These are the ones I personally worked on. These may be my best works of art in my entire life.. lol. Just kidding... sort of.

     After the snowmen came the cupcake decorating. Timmy and I made the cupcakes in the afternoon. I frosted them and we each frosted 3. This beauty was mine.

 David uses the minimalist approach.

 Timmy doesn't.

 My favorite..

 Timmy "accidentally" unwrapped this.

 After I told him he could eat one.

 Our next project model... Timmy made this one in art.

 Matt has actually made a few modifications that we all like. Here are the new batch ready to be decorated.

Reddit Secret Santa

     Reddit was trying to break a world record for the largest Secret Santa exchange. I decided to take part. We did break the record. If you don't know what a Secret Santa is- you are matched to someone who you will be assigned to buy a gift for. Someone else is assigned to buy you a gift. I was assigned to a man from CA. Reading his profile it was obvious that I didn't know a lot about his interests. His main interest was jiu jitsu. My first idea was to get him a nice hooded sweatshirt from one of the local jiu jitsu places. I tried 5... who all ordered theirs online. I should've known that ahead of time and just ordered them online right when I was assigned but I figured the best place to get gear from a gym would be AT that gym. Live and learn.  I ended up getting him a generic Brazilian jiu jitsu t-shirt and then some straight shaving materials, which he is also interested in.  I'm really hoping he likes them.
      I received my gift today.  Here's what arrived:
Presents in a package- always good. Packages are good, period.

    Funglish is a board game. I love games. The boys and I have already played it. It's a game where you are supposed to describe a word with cards with adjectives on it and the people are supposed to guess the word. They'll get the hang of it soon. She also sent bubble wrap, which the boys also enjoyed. Thanks Reddit Secret Santa!!!!


     Alright, I'm going to head out to our family Christmas party! I will be blogging more over vacation.