Monday, August 31, 2009

Aug 24 to 30

Monday
Started watching Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small.Biked 10.5 km. Walked 6.9 km.

Tuesday
My wife and I made a batch of Fruit Chili Sauce today. We have lots of tomatoes this year due to the excessive rain in June and July. The recipe is one that my grandmother Kipp used to make and my mother made it as well. It is an excellent product. Watched more of Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small. Walked 11 km.

Wednesday
Much cooler today. My wife and I made a second batch of Fruit Chili Sauce today. Watched more of Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small. Walked 8 km.

Thursday
Sunnay and cool today. Did some gardening and shopping today. Finished watching Season 4 of All Creatures Great and Small. Biked 12.6 km. Walked 9.2 km.

Friday
Pickled some beets and froze some tomatoes today. Watched a movie "88 Minutes." Kind of scary.Watched more JAG season 7. Biked 12.1 km. Walked 6.2 km.

Saturday
A wet and cool day. Did some shopping today. We worked on my Schultz and Neiman genealogy in preparation for a Schultz family reunion in September. Watched more JAG Season 7. Walked 6.4 km.

Sunday
A cloudy day. Went to church today. We worked on my Schultz and Neiman genealogy in preparation for a Schultz family reunion in September. Watched more JAG Season 7. Biked 12.6 km. Walked 3.1 km.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Aug 17 to 23

Monday
Watched a movie, "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage. Biblical references are very strong. Walked 7.6 km.

Tuesday
Finished watching Season 7 of JAG. The last for issues were all about Afghanistan. Walked 5.1 km.

Wednesday
Went canoeing today at Petrie Island, east of Ottawa. The weather was good in the morning. Watched a movie, "Archangel" with Daniel Craig. Walked 6.4 km.

Thursday
Weather cloudy and a bit of rain. The morning started off cool. Had a brief thunderstorm overnight. Fortunately Ottawa did not receive the bad weather that had passed over Southern Ontario. Biked 11.6 km today. Walked 3.9 km.

Friday
Got up at 5:15 this morning to take our oldest daughter to the airport. Way too early but a good morning. We waited until she was through US Customs and then headed home to get ready for the party tonight. We are having a small engagement party for our youngest daughter. Home by about 10 p.m. Zonked! Went for a bike ride of 12 km. Walked 6.3 km.

Saturday
Still humid today. Spent the day setting up a new desktop computer for my wife. This is her first new desktop. Biked 12.6 km. Walked 5.1 km.

Sunday
Today my wife and I spent about four hours with our daughter and her fiancee and their two dogs learning how to control them and their barking. This was a company called Bark Busters. The guy was good. His technique worked on both dogs. Now we have to practice daily until it becomes second nature to us. So now we are trained!! Watched a couple of issues of All Creatures Great and Small Season 4. This was not a good week for genealogy. Walked 7.5 km.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Aug 10 to 16

Monday
Very hot and humid today. Didn't do much except go to the post office. I spent part of the afternoon working on the images taken last week for my Schultz and Neumann families. It is looking good. I need to order the Parish register film for Warlin next. Biked 14 km. Walked 4.5 km.

Tuesday
Very hot and humid today. Did a bit of work on my genealogy. Walked 4.6km.

Wednesday
Hot and humid today. Went canoeing this morning for about 2 hours at Petrie Island. Good trip. Worked on the Canadian Census on my Link family. Sent my Ottawa Branch News off to the printer. Watched a couple of issues of JAG Season 7. Walked 5.1 km.

Thursday
Very hot (30 deg C) today and humid. Did a couple of hours of gardening this morning. Stayed in this afternoon and finished watching All Creatures Great and Small Season 3. Drove my wife to the Family History Library to look at Microfilm. Did some searching of the 1861 Canadian Census to fill in sources for my Kipp and Link families. Walked 6.6 km.

Friday
Very hot (30 deg C) today and humid. More gardening in the morning. Stayed in this afternoon and finished watching All Creatures Great and Small the movie. Watched more JAG Season 7. Did some searching of the 1861 Canadian Census to fill in sources for my Kipp families. Biked 12.5 km. Walked 7.8 km.

Saturday
Very hot (32 deg C) today and humid. Painted the front porch today. Added a bit of silica to the paint to try and make the porch less slippery in wet and icy weather. In the afternoon painted the picnic table. Did some searching of the 1861 Canadian Census to fill in sources for my Kipp families. Watched about 5 issues of JAG season 7. Walked 3.8 km.

Sunday
Very hot (35 deg C) today and humid. Watched more of JAG season 7. They are into Afghanistan stuff (first time around). Biked 13.2 km early this morning. This has not been a good week for walking, unless you do it first thing in the morning. Walked 4.6 km.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Aug 3 to 9

Monday
This was the end of a holiday weekend in Ontario called the Civic Holiday. Monday August 3rd was Colonel By Day in Ottawa, a day to honour the builder of the Rideau Canal and the founder of Bytown which became Ottawa. We had a day of excellent weather for the celebration and lots of people turned out. My wife and I and our daughter Margaret went downtown and looked around at the exhibits around the Bytown Museum and then went for a walk along the path below Parliament hill. We ended up at the Library and Archives Canada building where we took in a couple of exhibits on Karsh and Living Sounds of the Inuit. We then viewed the Garden of the Provinces and the flower beds and headed back across Parliament Hill to the Col. By Day celebrations before having lunch in the Rideau Centre and then home. We watched more of JAG Season 6. Walked 12 km.

Tuesday
We spent three hours looking at microfilm at the local Family History Library in Ottawa. I am working on my two German families Schultz and Neumann. I borrowed the Churchbooks from Schoenbeck and Staven in Mecklenberg-Strelitz, Germany and looked through one of them today. I found my Neumann family. Walked 4.1 km.

Wednesday
We spent another three hours looking at microfilm at the local Family History Library in Ottawa. I am working on my two German families Schultz and Neumann. Watched more JAG today. Worked on the next issue of the Ottawa Branch News for the OGS. It should be finished this weekend and then off to the printer next week. Walked 7.7 km.

Thursday
Today the weather started off OK then it rained around mid day then cleared up. Cold tonight. Just before the rain I finished cutting about half of the lawn. Watched more of JAG season 6 today. I did some more work on the Ottawa Branch News. Had our daughter, her fiancee and their two dogs over for supper. We had a nice BBQ. Biked 10.8 km. Walked 5.4 km.

Friday
Finished cutting the lawn. Watched more TV. Walked 6.3 km.

Saturday
Finished the next issue of the Ottawa Branch News. Went for a canoe ride at Petrie Island in the late afternoon. Spent about an hour at it. First time out this years so we didn't over do it. Watched more JAG Season 6. Started watching All Creatures Great and Small Season 3. Walked 5.9 km.

Sunday
Printed off a copy of the Ottawa Branch News for proofreading. Watched more All Creatures Great and Small Season 3. The heat and humidity are starting. Spent the afternoon driving to Morrisburg, Ontario for an executive meeting of the St. Lawrence Branch UELAC and driving back. Watched more All Creatures Great and Small Season 3. Walked 6.1 km.

With the two newsletters finished I started working om my genealogy again. I plan to post updates to the Kip/Kipp Family in America soon.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

July 27 to Aug 2

Monday
We continued packing our daughters household goods for her move. My wife had done most of this in May. Long Island was really hot and humid. Just a walk to the store a few blocks away was enough to make your cloths feel soaking wet. Walked 10.7 km.

Tuesday
Today after doing a few errands in the morning we went into Manhattan on the Long island Railroad for a final visit. We spent the afternoon in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This place is a treasure! We did a quick tour of a number of areas in the museum which took us to closing time. We then did a short walk through Central Park and then took the subway back to Penn Station and a ride on the train back to Mineola. Walked 17.9 km.

Wednesday
We did the final packing for the move early in the morning. The movers arrived about 9:30 and they finished moving everything out by about 12:30. We then had lunch, did a bit of shopping and headed off to Kingston, New York for the night. Being late in the day to start off from Long Island we ran into traffic of course. Traffic is the normal way of life on the New York area! Arrived in Kingston, NY about 6:30 pm after a brief stop in New Paltz for a short walk on the Historic Huguenot Street. Had supper at Roudigans at the hotel and then the rain came down. It rained all night. The weather channel had even issued flash flood warnings for the area. Walked 11.3 km.

Thursday
It was sunny in the early morning. The day turned out to be great for travelling. We headed off from Kingston, New York about 11 am and headed north on I-87. We passed around Albany and got off I-90 at Amsterdam, NY. We then drove along route 5 N slowing to look at Guy Park, Fort Johnson, the Montgomery County Courthouse in Fonda, NY, and Tribes Hill intersection. We turned off onto route 10 at Palatine Bridge and made a pass through my favourite NY town, Stone Arabia. We have visited the two churches in this tiny hamlet many times and the view of the Mohawk Valley is fabulous. We continued along 5 N through Nelliston passing by the Old Palatine Church, Fort Klock, the Nellis Tavern and the field where the Battle of Fort Klock took place. After that we continued along 5 N to Little Falls and past the Herkimer Home Historic Site where we got back on the freeway. The remainder of the trip was just a long drive, passing through Syracuse, Cicero and Watertown, New York. There was a slight delay at the Canadian border and then a dash for home arriving about 7:30 pm. We unpacked the van and then went grocery shopping to restock our empty refrigerator. Walked about 7.5 km.

Friday
Went to see Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. Good movie. I still think you need to have read the book before watching so you know what is going on! Walked 5.3 km.

Saturday
Sunny and humid day. Did a bit of gardening and cut the grass. Biked about 15 km. Walked 6.3 km.

Sunday
Raining and humid today. Got out and fertilized the lawn. I know why fertilize, it just makes it grow. If I don't do it I end up with bags of spare fertilizer which I have to get rid off. We watched more JAG season 6. Finished one of my newsletters, The Royal Yorker, for the St. Lawrence Branch UELAC. Will mail it out next week. Walked 6.8 km.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

July 20 to 26th

Needless to say, I have not had time to work on the Kip/Kipp family stuff for a while.


Monday
First full day of the Rathbun family reunion at Fort Wayne. We took a bus tour to Shipshewana which is a sort of commercialized Amish town. Lots of stores to shop in and lots of eating places. We visited a store called Yodders which has lots of interesting foods, including grain and grass fed beef, pork and lamb. The day was enjoyable. Our daughter Margaret defended her PhD thesis in information science successfully. So now we have two Dr. Kipps in the family. The third one will happen later but she will be a medical doctor. Walked 9 km.

Tuesday
Spent the day researching at the Allen County Public Library. They have lots of books and micro text to look at. Took a some images of books with the digital camera. I wouldn't go all the way to Fort Wayne just to use their library, but if you are going that way have a look in their catalogue to see what they might have that would assist your family research. Walked 7.5 km.


Wednesday
Visited the Cord-Auburn-Duesenberg museum at Auburn, Indiana. A great auto museum for cars of the 30's. This was the family banquet night and it went well. Prime rib for supper - delicious! Walked 7.4 km.


Thursday
Drove from Fort Wayne to London to pick up our daughter Margaret, then we drove to Ottawa arriving about midnight. On the way we passed through some rain and watched a spectacular rainbow for perhaps half a hour as we drove along the 401 East of Belleville, Ontario. A very long day. Walked 4.3 km.


Friday
Rain, rain and more rain! The weeds are growing faster than the lawn. Walked 6.5 km.


Saturday
Did some catch up gardening and then relaxed bit. Walked 6.5 km.

Sunday
Took off from Ottawa headed for Mineola on Long Island. We decided to take a different route this time because of the problems with the Cornwall border crossing. We headed south on 416 then west along 401 to the Hill Island/Alexandria Bay crossing. We stopped at Cicero, NY just above Syracuse, NY and had a delicious turkey dinner at Plainville Farms Restaurant. We then headed south on I-87 through Courtland to Binghamton, NY. We continued south through Scranton, PA where we hit about 20 miles of road construction. We thought this was bad! We then headed into New Jersey on route 80 where we hit more traffic. The best was yet ahead of us! When we were about 4 miles away form the George Washington bridge to Manhattan we came to a stop. The traffic was so bad that we took about two hours to get to the toll booths at the GW bridge. After getting through that we took about another hour in the rain and dark to get to Mineola where my daughter lived. We left about 9:30 in the morning from Ottawa and arrived in Mineola about 10 pm. A long trip! Walked 5.2 km.

July 13 to 19

Sorry! I haven't posted for two weeks. We have been travelling.

Monday
Started reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Walked 11.6 km.

Tuesday
Volunteer work sorting books at the Friends of the Library and Archives Canada.
Walked 9.4 km.

Wednesday
Finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Hope the movie is as good as the book. Worked on The Royal Yorker summer newsletter for the St. Lawrence Branch UELAC. Our daughter and her fiancee brought their two dogs over tonight for a visit. Watched more JAG season 5.
Walked 8 km.

Thursday
Cut the grass. Watched more JAG season 5.
Walked 9 km.

Friday
Finished watching Season 5 of JAG.
Biked 13.6 km . Walked 6.8 km.

Saturday
Started drive to Fort Wayne, Indiana, by driving our daughter to London, Ontario. She is to defend her PhD thesis next week.
Walked 7.1 km.

Sunday
Left London, Ontario about 11:45am and drove through Michigan via Sarnia and arrived in Fort Wayne, Indiana about 6:15 pm. Had a wait of about 50 minutes at the border.
Socialized a bit at the Rathbun Family reunion.
Walked 5.7 km.