Monthly Archives: March 2013

Joy Jar

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P1040284

Spring is really here! I guess the calendar says it arrives next week but it is really here. I’m so glad. I love having season but this year the winter seemed to last longer than normal.

  • deep blue skies
  • Zodiac with the kids as school
  • my cute puppies
  • finishing Dune’s blanket
  • finding my purse before I realized it was lost
  • taking a Sunday nap
  • crocus under our pear tree
  • Tricia stopping by
  • sweatshirt weather
  • warm sunshine
  • singing
  • sunny warm days
  • doing “go to bed” with Zodiac and Dune
  • taking a good walk with Dune
  • chatting with friends
  • planting starts for my garden
  • my lettuce coming up
  • Bill getting most of the garden rototilled
  • Dune and Zodiac snuggled together
  • how good Zodiac was at Costco

Six Days to RootsTech

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Part of RootsTech is a big exhibit hall with tons of booths. This week I got an email with some of the great vendors who will be there.

Activities and Special Offers at RootsTech

There are many exciting activities and offers available at RootsTech this year. Some activities require an RSVP. Check out the details below!

Expo Hall Fun Pass

Complete the Expo Hall Fun Pass to be eligible to enter a drawing for an Apple iPad and other great prizes! Simply get the pass filled out, turn it in to the Expo Hall Help Desk, and attend the prize drawing on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in the Backblaze Demo Theater to see if you’re a winner! You must be present to win.

Print Your Fan Chart

GenealogyWallCharts.com – Booth #631

Last year GenealogyWallCharts.com printed over 400 genealogy fan charts during RootsTech.

Family ChartMasters – Booth #135

Family ChartMasters has a free decorative working chart for you! Just take the coupon in your RootsTech registration bag to their booth and you will receive a free 20×24 fill-in-the-blank chart worthy of being framed.

Scan a Book, Document or Photo

FamilySearch Book Scanning 

FamilySearch is pleased to offer free book scanning at RootsTech again this year.  They will have book scanners on site and will scan a digital copy of your family, county, or town history.

Mocavo Document and Photo Scanning – Booth #513

Mocavo is pleased to offer RootsTech 2013 attendees free document and photo scanning as part of an effort to bring them online for free.

You can bring any paper documents, photocopies of original records, paper family trees or other historical documents, and they will scan them safely for free! Within only 30 days of the conference you will be able to download your digitized record.

Simply drop off your documents at booth #513 on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday and they will contact you when your document is ready to be picked up. Click here to find out more details about Mocavo’s free scanning and what kind of documents they can and cannot accept.

Record Your Personal Story with a Video or Audio Recording Session

“Bring Your Stories to Life” 

Story@Home is pleased to sponsor the “Bring Your Story to Life” booth. Receive a free personal consultation and video/audio recording session to preserve your own personal family story or interview in the soundproof recording booth.  Once you have completed your recording session, you will receive a copy on a flash drive for your personal use.

Hire a Photo Detective for Free

 “Bring Your Stories to Life” 

Also available in the “Bring Your Stories to Life” booth, you can schedule a free 10 minute, one-on-one session with the Photo Detective, Maureen Taylor. Maureen is an internationally recognized photo identification and family history expert.

Earn the Boy Scouts of America Genealogy Merit Badge 

BSA Genealogy Booth 

Boy Scouts can sign up for a 20 minute workshop to complete the requirements for their Genealogy Merit Badge. Click on the links below for available session times. Workshop capacity is 40 participants per session time.

Backblaze Online Backup – Prizes and Discount Codes

Backblaze Booth – #530

Backblaze Online Backup is excited to help sponsor RootsTech 2013! They backup all of your precious photos, videos, and files to preserve your memories! Backblaze is the easiest solution available, you simply go to www.backblaze.com, create an account, download the client, and they will start backing up all your data right away!

Please visit the Backblaze booth #530 and they will be happy to tell you all about it! They’ll have prizes and discount codes, so stop by! Their social media guy Yev will also be emceeing the Backblaze Demo Theater, so check that out and see all of the other awesome products and services at RootsTech 2013!

Yakira Book – last page

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I have to admit that the first month or so of raising Yakira was very difficult and I wondered if she would do better with another raiser. But she matured quickly and grew into such a wonderful dog. I’m glad I didn’t give up on her. She taught me patience which was well rewarded in the end. With her sweet nature and natural confidence Yakira will have a positive impact on many more lives as she guides Diane over the next several years.

We are proud of Yakira’s accomplishments and we are so glad that she has been apart of our lives. She has certainly lived up to her name because she is a precious girl.

 

 

One Week to RootsTech

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In just one week I’ll be at RootTech! Each morning at 8:30 a.m. there is a General Session with keynote speakers. Some of them I’ve heard speak before but most of them it will be my first time. One thing I really like about RootsTech is the variety of presenters they offer. Here is who will be speaking at this year’s General Sessions:

Thursday Generl Session Sponsored by findmypast.com

Keynote Speakers:

Dennis Brimhall

Dennis C. Brimhall is currently the President and CEO of FamilySearch International.  FamilySearch International is a worldwide organization helping individuals find, preserve, catalogue, and search genealogical information.  FamilySearch International is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He was formerly the President and Chief Executive Officer of University of Colorado Hospital.

Syd Lieberman

Syd is a nationally acclaimed storyteller, an author, and an award-winning teacher. Many of his best-loved stories deal with growing up in Chicago and raising a family in Evanston, Illinois. Also known for his original historical pieces, Syd has written stories for some of America’s leading institutions and agencies, including the Smithsonian; Historic Philadelphia, Inc.; NASA; and the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

D. Joshua Taylor

D. Joshua Taylor, MA, MLS is the Business Development Manager – North America for brightsolid online publishing, the creator of findmypast.com. A nationally known and recognized professional genealogist, lecturer, genealogical author, and researcher, Taylor is the current president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) and the former Director of Education at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Friday General Session

Sponsored by Ancestry.com

Keynote Speakers

Jyl Pattee

Jyl Johnson Pattee is the founder of Mom It Forward Media, a digital agency and network of social media influencers. Currently, she sits on the Mom Advisory Council for ONE.org, is a Shot@Life Champion with the United Nations Foundation, was named one of Parent Magazine’s Top 10 Power Moms, and is on Babble’s list of Top Twitter Moms.

Tim Sullivan

Timothy Sullivan has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer and as a director of Ancestry.com, Inc. since September 2005. Prior to joining Ancestry.com, Mr. Sullivan was Chief Operating Officer and then President and CEO of Match.com. Mr. Sullivan holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Saturday General Session 

Sponsored by MyHeritage

Keynote Speakers

David Pogue

David Pogue is the weekly personal-technology columnist for The New York Times. He is also an Emmy Award-winning tech correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and the current host of NOVA ScienceNow. Merging his musical background with his scientific knowledge, David Pogue delivers unique presentations that generally end with him sitting at a piano performing a couple of his famous tech-industry song parodies.

 

Gilad Japhet

Gilad Japhet is the Founder and CEO of MyHeritage. A rare mix of hardcore genealogist, hands-on technologist and visionary, Gilad is one of the most influential people today in the advancement of online genealogy. Gilad has grown MyHeritage into the world’s second largest genealogy company with 72 million registered users and 1.5 billion family tree profiles.

Yakira Book – Yummy

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I think all labs love their food, but Yakira not only loves her food she loves her bowl too. After finishing her meal she would lick it clean to the last drop and then start scraping the bowl with her teeth. She put her top teeth on the upper edge of the bowl and open her mouth as wide as she could and scrap her teeth up the side of the bowl. It makes a sound surprisingly like fingernails on a chalk board.

 

Celebrating Nine Decades

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90th birthday invitation for my mom

My family is preparing for my mom’s 90th birthday this month, so I thought I’d share the invitation I made for the event. It looks a little funny because I’ve blacked out some of the personal information. (Too bad we have to worry about those kinds of things.) I was really happy with how it came out and the format and concept could be easily adjusted for someone else so I thought I’d share it here. By choosing one photo from each decade of her life it gave a nice progression and made it so much easier to decide which pictures to include on her invitation.

Below are links to my Dropbox and two InDesign templates that you can edit for your personal use. (Please don’t use them for commercial projects without my written permission.) The first file is the invitation placed in the center of an 8.5 x 11 page with crop lines. By cutting along these lines and folding on the edge of the invitation it creates its own envelope for mailing. I printed them on a heavy weight brochure paper.

The second file is for stickers using the “Celebrating Nine Decades” logo. By printing this file on a sheet of sticker paper and cutting out the stickers, you then have an easy and elegant way to close up the envelope. After cutting out the stickers, I used a corner rounder on the corners. This was a nice finishing touch to the project.

90th Invite with Envelope

Nine Decades stickers

To download the InDesign Templates click on the link, then right click on the strange document that loads up and click “save page as”.

Yakira Book – Yucky

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In the spring Yakira sniffed a petal from a blossom and it stuck to her nose. She knew it was there but couldn’t figure out how to get it off. I was working with Styrofoam for a project and it got all over her and Zodiac. They looked like reverse Dalmatians. At Halloween she was tolerant but unhappy about her Aunt Lisa trying costumes on her at PetCo.

 

Book of the Week – The Story of John Alexander Moncur

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I really like how Joe Sisco organized this book “The Story of John Alexander Moncur.” Each spread covers a ten-year span. This seems like a very doable way to cover someone’s life history. I also like how the bottom of the page shows significant events in the world each year. This is what Joe had to say about his book.

The idea for this endeavour evolved from the simple concept that people’s life story’s need to be told. Life by the Decades Incorporated allows people to create lasting memory books filled with photos, mementos, and many interesting facts about a life well-lived. With our help, you can share your story with your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. All of your loved ones can share in the experience of a life of love, laughter, loss and a tapestry of memorable moments. Intended as a celebration of life, our memory books provide a chance to bring loved ones together through the process of gathering photos, sharing stories and recounting the great memories unique to your life.

While it looks like the business attempt did last, I’m going to file this idea away for future reference. It has lots of possibilities. He also did another book showing the life of a couple.

Yakira Book – Yoyo

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One of Yakira’s most endearing traits is her wiggle. When she wags her tail her whole body gets into it. Every time Yakira meets someone she knows and loves she will wiggle from the tip of her nose all they way down to the tip of her tail. How can you not love a dog that show such joy at seeing you again. Yakira is just such a sweetie!

Yakira Book – Yowzer

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Yakira was a super cute puppy and she grew in to a beautiful dog. She got lots and lots of comments everywhere she went.

She had evaluations by two different CFRs (community field representative) from GDB and both commented on her looks and took photos to send to the breeding department to watch for her to come in for breeder evaluation. One of them said “she is well put together.”

But a breeder for Guide Dogs for the Blind must have more than just good looks. Yakira’s EKG wasn’t quite perfect and so she wasn’t picked as a breeder after all. But she is still as beautiful as they come.