We've had a lot of visitors this month!  Jessie, Dan and Anna surprised us by coming in for a long weekend, and Scotty and the kids came in to spend some time with everyone.  Then, a week later, we had Katie and Adam with us for an abbreviated version of Grandparents Camp.  We're all looking forward to when Anna is old enough to be part of this event.

Jessie got to spend a couple of weeks in England in July when her employer, Red Hat, send her to help out in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) bureau, where she got to meet some online colleagues in person and make new friends.  See some pictures here.  She had a great time but was happy to get home and see her family again.  Dan held down the home front in Cary.  Anna has been doing great with gymnastics ... Jess has uploaded some pix to her Flickr site.

We are still waiting to learn if any living Swiss Bettler kin can be located, but our friend Peter in Zurich has heard from the "Zivilstandsamt" who promises to have an answer for us in a couple of weeks.

I have also created and published scans of the family records pages from the Suter-Edwards Bible, listing births, deaths and marriages from the Suter-Edwards family and later the Edwards-Bettler marriage.

In other genealogy news, we found a special deal on DNA analysis on "DNA Day," April 23.  You could purchase the whole spectrum of analyses, normally $499, for only $99.  So we did and are awaiting results.  This will include both medical and ancestral findings.  Presumably her medical information will apply to Ginny's brothers equally, and the mitrochondrial DNA information will apply equally not only to her daughters and granddaughter, but also to her female second cousins, the granddaughters of Calla Edwards Yount.  Roger is hoping for confirmation of an alleged Cherokee ancestress some generations back.

In more recent news, Roger and Ginny took a 7-day cruise in the Western Caribbean in late January, visiting Cozumel and Belize City.  We took the opportunity to take a tour of the Mayan ruins near Costa Maya.  And Rachel took a two-week tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangkok in February ... check out some of her pictures here.  Jess, Dan and Anna visited for Anna's 4th birthday in mid-May.  Jess will celebrate her 2nd year at Red Hat this summer, and was recently promoted to Senior Production Support Engineer (L2) specializing in running Linux on the IBM zSeries mainframes and Red Hat Messaging with AMQP. 

Aline has been doing well at Westminster, and was able to join us for Anna's visit.  Things are also going well for everyone on the West Coast.  Rachel had a very long layover in San Francisco on her way home from Asia, and Jesse and Chigusa met her at the airport and took her out for dinner to help pass the time.

The past year has not been as dire for us as for some but we are still hoping for a better 2010.  At least we haven't had another power outage since the ice storm, and the August flood mostly spared us.  Rachel celebrated a year with Highlands Healthcare, then moved on to Jefferson Manor, a nicer facility off Westport Road.  Jessie celebrated a year at Red Hat in July and loves it.  Ginny managed to retire again from the musicians' union in April but is still pretty engaged with them; she goes in every week or so to do the books and payroll, and maintains their website.  Roger enjoys working with folks in foreclosure, helping them work out deals with their banks and negotiating sales when possible. 

We still haven't succeeded in putting together the long-discussed European trip ... Ginny is still trying to find enough specific information about Great-Grandmother Lena Bettler to make a trip to Switzerland productive.  But a visit to North Carolina is always a pleasant diversion.  We also still bat around the idea of a Route 66 tour, which could hopefully include a visit to Ben and Barb in Colorado on the way back, and another visit to Holton, KS.  Rachel has a big trip planned for February to Vietnam and Cambodia.

So check out our new pictures and let us know what's new with you!

We celebrated Aline's 90th birthday recently with her favorite activity, a trip to the boat (formerly Caesar's, now Horseshoe).  She had a great time even if she didn't wind up with any profits.  We followed up with lunch at Cracker Barrel where she enjoyed a plate of chicken and dumplings.  Her memory is still pretty fuzzy but she always recognizes her family and her physical health is quite good.  She has made a good recovery from the hip replacement she had to undergo on her last birthday.

And in late January, for the second time in six months, we had to haul out the generator for four days and three nights after the big ice storm took down many tree limbs and many electric power lines throughout Louisville and much of Kentucky.  This time around it wasn't such a walk in the park; we still had hot water and the stove and whatever could be plugged into the generator but couldn't run the furnace, and it was below freezing.  The three of us and two dogs and two cats camped out overnight in the living room with layers of clothing and two space heaters.  We got to keep the cable this time but it still wasn't fun.  Ginny is by now completely over her gracious, historic neighborhood and all its gracious, weak-limbed historic trees, and ready to move into the 21st Century!

It has gotten better since.  Jess celebrated her first anniversary at Red Hat in Raleigh in July; Rachel marks her first anniversary at Highlands Health Care this month; and Roger closed his first two real estate short sales this week, after long weeks negotiating with mortgage holders and working out the best resolutions possible for the previous homeowners.  We are hoping to take that long-discussed trip along Route 66 this fall.

We recently held Grandparents Camp for Katie and Adam on their last few days of summer vacation before starting the new school year in Mason, Ohio:  See some pictures here.

In other news, Tom and Mario are back from Portugal, and Bud and Barb have relocated from Delaware to Florida.  Jesse and Chigusa's younger son Alan graduated from U.C. Berkeley this past spring, and Brian and Lisa's older daughter Alex has graduated from high school and is planning a career as a veterinary technician and later, a vet.  Kathie Bettler's new venture, summer drama school has been a big success. 

It won't be long before we're taking names for Thanksgiving ... check back soon!

Our biggest news is, after 32 years at the TV station, Roger decided to retire.  Not exactly to a life of leisure, though ... he has been busier than ever finally being able to devote full time to his real estate investment career.  We had originally hoped to make a long road trip this Fall, exploring Route 66 and meeting up with some kinfolk out West along the way, but there have been some other matters come up and that will probably not happen until next spring.  Here are a few pix of the retirement festivities.  Ginny is still working for the musicians but will probably wrap that up by next year and try to get back to genealogy and visiting grandkids.

Jessie and Anna came to town to visit for a couple of days in August and take in the State Fair with us and Roger's parents.  Then all the Sterlings headed for a week at the beach in New Jersey.  The Sterlings' big news is, Dan's dad Bruce applied for and won a posting to Germany for several years.  Bruce and Melody had lived in Germany for some years during the 1980s and are looking forward to a second sojourn, and the rest of us look forward to visiting!

Exciting news from South Carolina:  Alyssa Rowe, who is an 8th-grader at Rollings Middle School of the Arts in Summerville, was accepted to attend the first-ever Idol Camp in Massachusetts, an offshoot of the American Idol show.  For ten days in July she got to practice her singing and songwriting with 150 other kids, and was written up in the local newspaper.  Big sister Alex, a junior this year, is also musical ... both the girls sing and play guitar. 

Nanny and Bop's little house on Brent Street was knocked down this summer, and most of the lots on that side of the street have been cleared.  We presume the garage fronting on Barret has plans for the space, although in the meantime half of the driveway next to that lot (which always used to be full of cars undergoing repairs) has been fenced off and is used by Barkstown, a doggie daycare.  When Ginny got out of her car to snap pix of the house, fifty dogs took strong exception.  (Fortunately, it's a high, strong chain link fence).

In other sad news, Jaster's dad Alex finally passed on, having attained the age of fifteen, a very respectable age for a Golden Retriever.  Otherwise things are fine in Scotty and Philip's household.  Philip is still at Ford and Scotty has resumed her social work career now that Katie and Adam are both in elementary school.

We can't believe it is nearly time to send out the Thanksgiving invitations!  But time for everyone to start thinking about whether you can join us this year.  We even have a new doormat to show you all.  So, y'all come!
 

Ginny and Roger are looking forward to getting the boat out this summer, after poor Rog spent last summer with cast and crutches.  The lake level at Lake Cumberland has been lowered by 40 feet or more for repairs to Wolf Creek Dam, but there is still plenty of water left to navigate. 

Ginny and Melody Sterling are collaborating to complete Anna's genealogy as far back as possible, and hope to make a visit to Frankfort soon to take advantage of the wonderful resources of the History Center and Barb Vogler's tour-directing skills.

We hope all of you have a great summer!