Feeling Nostalgic

After the first big snowstorm, I headed to NJ for Christmas as you may have read in my previous post. It was my first one without Guillaume, so it was a bit difficult this year. Anyhow, for some reason I got super nostalgic and began to look back at old pictures. I made my parents get out the slide projector.

Setting up the screen and the slide projector could be a whole other post. I'm not sure how people dealt with that thing in the past. Now all you have to do is plug a cord into your television. We had to figure out which way the slides went and stick them one by one in all those little slots. What a pain.

I didn't care, though. I was bent on seeing photos of Amy as a newborn and a toddler, my great-grandparents and my young parents. It turns out we have a million boxes of slides from the early 70s up through the late 80s or early 90s. We couldn't see them all, but we got through a bunch of them while sitting by the fire place and drinking some wine. It was cozy.

Lucky for you, I'll be getting a slide scanner and featuring a few slides on this blog. However, for the time being, you'll have to settle for the prints I've found. As I was looking for a DVD of my dad when he was little, I found a photo album that Grandma Elsie must of made of her favorite old photos. It was a treasure trove of pictures (with captions!) of her mom, her mom's sister, her dad, baby pictures of my grandpa and my dad. It was fun to go through. I'm slowly scanning them all.

Above is your first installment from grandma's album. You'll see her engagement picture to my grandpa, a photo of her in her wedding dress on her wedding day in 1939 and a cool action shot of her and my grandpa coming down the stairs of the church. Check out his dapper jacket. They look so young and happy.

The last photo is my grandmother with a little boy who might be my grandpa's brother, George, but I'm not sure. (Does anyone know?) They are on the steps of "The Old House," which I've heard stories about all of my life. It is located in Finderne on Main Street.

More on The Old House in another post as I have a photo of the woman who my great-grandfather bought the house from (also from grandma's album)! Did people do that at that time? We didn't do that when we sold our houses. Anyhow, The Old House feels like a family member to me and represents a lot of history and perhaps that's why we have tons of photos of it, including its previous owner.

In the meantime, I'll keep scanning and continue to post more. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

PICTURED: Elsie (Biacovsky) Andrews and Julius Andrews.

Christmas Day in Randolph

We spent a cozy Christmas day in Randolph this year. There's still snow on the ground, but not as much as about a week ago. The weather was very chilly and we had a fire in the fireplace. Again there was more eating and drinking. We had a big pancake breakfast after opening the presents. Later we ate turkey with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie for dessert.

As a joke, my parents got Amy and I "snuggies" and we laughed about that for a while. I can't bear to put the photos from that on here. It isn't pretty.

We did some after Christmas shopping and I picked up a "Coraline" for us to watch at night. It was fun because it came with 3-D glasses. I"m sure it wasn't exactly like it would be in the theatre, but it was pretty interesting. While I was really excited to see the movie, I fell asleep towards the end with my 3-D glasses on and all. Amy thought this was pretty funny.

Christmas Eve 2009 in NJ

We spent Christmas Eve in New Jersey at the Asheys' house with my Aunt Kathryn, cousins Jeff, Pete, Liz, their daughters (Jill and Paige), my sister and my parents.

I was a little late because I had to work on until about 3 PM on Christmas Eve as my company throws a party for employees' children that day and my team runs the party. The party went well. There were games, crafts, sing-a-longs, and lots of kid-friendly food. Decor included balloon arches and giant snowmen and penguins.

I hopped on the train from Newark and my parents picked up in Raritan. Then, we headed to my cousins' house. When we got there, we were greeted by their chocolate lab, Cody, and my cousin Pete. There were tons of appetizers and wine. After that, we had a delicious dinner of pork, gravy, green beans and salad among other things.

Around dessert, we were visited by some close friends of my cousins'. Their kids are similar ages to Jill and Paige. The adults talked in the dining room while the girls (and their brother) hung out in the living room. When the guests left, we went to the living room to open the presents.

Jill and Paige got a brand new electric guitar and amp. Jeff played a song or two and helped Paige to pluck out a tune. They were thrilled. Everyone seemed very happy with their gifts. Cody was eager to get in on the fun and jumped around with us.

There was talk of Santa coming soon, so we decided it was time to leave and headed back to Randolph to get some sleep before another day of eating and drinking.


Pictured: (top, right) Sue, Amy and Heather; (middle, left) Aunt K, Paige and Jeff; (middle, left) Liz and Jill; (bottom, left) Group shot.

New Home for Heather

Sorry I've been out of touch for so long, but life has been very hectic for me. A lot of big changes at once. Most of my time has been filled with preparing to move, then moving and then settling in to my new home. In addition, I am in my busiest season at work. All in all, a very busy time for me.

My new place is shaping up pretty well. I got most of the furniture that I needed. I was thrilled to get my new bed! Sleeping on a mattress on the floor gets old pretty quick. It has a a bunch of drawers under it so that I don't need a dresser.

Another cool thing that I got is a little table that folds up into a little box where you can keep the extra chairs. It's perfect for a small space like mine. And, it got delivered all put together so I didn't have to battle with instructions or funny shaped tools and things.


The location of my new place is better than I had hoped. I'm near a lot of major subway stops and still in the same neighborhood as before. It's great. Hope that you can come to see it soon!