The first half of this month we had cousins visit and Mike's doctors' appointments for tests prior to his knee surgery.
On the 16th we went to Sebastian Medical Center to attend "Joint Camp" in preparation for Mike's surgery. We were given a run-through on what to expect during Mike's stay before and after his knee surgery and about the physical therapy he would receive after the surgery. We were also told about what items we would need at home after he came home from the hospital - a walker, a chair for the shower, etc.
This last half of the month has been almost as busy. As I mentioned in my last post, Mike's cousin Mary Lynn from California had to replace the stove in her rental house in Melbourne. So on the afternoon of the 21st we drove up to her house and met the appliance company that was delivering the stove and the plumber who was doing some work on her house.
We had bought some new plants for our front flower bed and it was now apparent that Mike wouldn't be able to help me plant them and put down the mulch. Fortunately, Angie's List had a special on landscaping for 2 men for 4 hours for $259 and we've made arrangements for a company come next month to do the work. I've placed the new plants in their pots in the front flower bed where I think I want them planted.
We did move the Lady Palm from the front flower bed where it was getting too much sun
We've been busier this month than usual. My cousin Jimmy and his wife Sally from Illinois came on the 10th for a visit. They have a time share in Orlando and their son and his family came from Texas for a visit. Jimmy and Sally drove over to visit with us for a few hours while their son and his family went to Disney. We just had homemade subs and a pasta salad I fixed for lunch. It didn't occur to me until after they left, that we hadn't taken any photos! I guess it was because we were having such a good visit, that we didn't stop for photos.
Mike's cousin Mary Lynn from California flew in to Orlando late in the evening on the 9th to check on her rental house at Melbourne that is now empty. We drove up to her house the day of the 9th and left her our air mattress, a table lamp and a bedside table to use while she stayed there. We drove up to see Mary Lynn on Saturday the 11th and she always has a few small jobs for Mike to do around the house. Mary Lynn took us out for dinner to Squid Lips in Melbourne. Mary Lynn left on the 15th and we drove up that day to get our stuff we had left for her to use.We always enjoy seeing Mary Lynn the few times we get together.
June 13th was Mike's 74th birthday and we drove down to Vero to have dinner at Outback Steakhouse. The steaks are always good there.
Mike has been having knee problems for a while and our primary care doctor recommended
Well, the title pretty well sums of the last half of this month!
We had 5" of rain on May 17 and 2" on May 19 - I'm not complaining because our plants really liked the rain and we didn't have to put out the sprinkler to water that week.
We went to dinner at the Italian Cousin here in Sebastian on the 18th and had their spaghetti dinner. It's such a large portion that we have learned to eat only half and bring the rest home for another meal.
Today we went down to Vero to see the movie X-Men Apocalypse in 3D - which we really enjoyed.
Afterwards we went to Olive Garden for dinner. We both ordered the unlimited salad and soup with breadsticks. I had the chicken and gnocchi soup and Mike had the pasta e fagioli soup and we both had a second bowl of soup. It's always a good choice and even with the
Mike and I drove home last Monday after spending several days at Fletcher's house. We were there so I could attend the 2016 National Genealogical Society's annual conference. It was especially nice since last Sunday was Mother's Day and we could spend it with Fletcher.
This has been a much slower and less busy week than last week and it's great to get back in our regular routine.
Tuesday I attended the monthly Indian River Genealogical Society's meeting at the library in Vero. Wednesday Mike and I dropped Tinker off at the groomer's for a bath and then we went to Country Ham N Egg for breakfast.
I took Tinker in to the vet's on Thursday for his annual checkup and all of his tests came back great.
This morning I went to Home Depot and WalMart Supercenter shopping for a couple of planters and found them at WalMart. Then I stopped at Sandwich Shack and got lunch for Mike and I. He had his usual Philly Cheesesteak sandwich and I had the Turkey, Avocado, Bacon Wrap.
Tonight I ordered a Y-DNA test from Family Tree DNA for Mike. We've both had our autosomal DNA tests done at Ancestry. I'm hoping that maybe with the Y-DNA test I can break through the brick wall I have on Mike's ancestors.
It felt so good to sleep in this morning! If you can call getting up at 7:00 this morning sleeping in! As much as I enjoyed attending the National Genealogical Society Conference that last 4 days, I'm not sure I could have done a 5th full day of seminars. In those 4 days I attended 19 one hour seminars and 3 thirty minute seminars.
Tinker has really "mellowed out" around cats now. I got a picture of Tinker and Josie taking their after breakfast naps on the sofa this morning.
Josie is 14 years old (as best we can figure) and used to be our cat until we sold our home and moved into the motorhome. Then she went to live with Fletcher along with our other two cats Bailey and Joey (who are now deceased).
Mike and I just spent today relaxing and watching movies with Fletcher. Then Fletcher took us out for dinner to Miller's Ale House in Ft. Lauderdale. We each ordered steaks and salads and Mike and I had the Apple Crisp for dessert.
A final note on the genealogy conference, I didn't get to attend some seminars that I would
My first seminar this morning was "Identifying Women: The Ultimate Brick Wall" by Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FVGS. She talked about the early laws governing women and what their legal rights were or weren't and how that affected the types of records they would leave behind and how to find those records.
My 9:30 seminar was "West Florida Pre-1830: the History, the People, and the Records" by Sharon D. Monson. This was a class on the early history of West Florida under different countries and how that affected the types of records that were created. She provided a list of websites that had some of the early West Florida records. I'm especially interested in this because Mike's Fletcher and Manning ancestors lived in West Florida before 1845.
The 11:00 seminar was "The Hidden Gender - Finding Women in Courthouse Records" by Janice Lovelace, Ph.D. As in my seminar at 8:00 this morning, Janice covered the types of legal documents and records that women could be found in. She spoke about what legal rights women had and didn't have. I know it sounds like I basically repeated my first seminar, but each speaker sometimes will cover one type of record in more detail than another speaker will or will have a different way of researching to find records.
I took a break from attending any of the lunch break seminars today. I decided to get some Chicken Fingers with coleslaw and a soda for lunch ($14). After eating I stopped by some of the vendors' booths in the Exhibit Hall to see if I found anything interesting that I might have missed before. Then I realized that I REALLY missed
Mike and I stopped at a Burger King for breakfast this morning before taking me to the conference center for today's seminars.
My 8:00 seminar was "Reasonably Exhaustive Research, The First Criteria for Genealogical Proof" given my Elizabeth Shown Mills, CGL, FASG, FNGS, FUGA. She explained the difference between "search" and "research" and that the Genealogical Proof Standard had been changed in 2014 to "reasonably exhaustive research" instead of search. She covered the processes that we need to go through in our research. The second part of the seminar was a research project and the steps taken to prove and disprove some of the information from past researchers.
The next seminar was "Focus on Place: Building Locality Profiles for Your Research" by Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS. I have heard Josh talk on this subject before at one of our Valentine Seminars for the Indian River Genealogical Society. He is a lively and entertaining speaker and none of the other seminars in the 9:30 time slot really struck an interest in me. After my last seminar which was really an in depth and complicated subject, this one was a welcome change. I still learned some new pointers from Josh today. Basically his concept of a locality profile is the same as creating a timeline for location - county, state, country. We learned how and where to search and locate information on the locales that we were searching in.
The 11:00 seminar was given by Richard Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA "Territorial Papers of the Southeast". This was really informative and Rick gave us some terrific printed sources for locating territorial papers and told us which ones were online and where to find them. This was really helpful since a lot of our ancestors' lived in areas that were still territories before they became states.
I've eaten a turkey wrap and a hamburger for lunch this week and really wanted something
