Mongie at home in Connecticutt.

This is a picture of my grandmother “Mongie” as I remember her. She is sitting in their backyard in Connecticutt. 

Mongie was my grandfather’s second wife but she’s the grandmother on my mother’s side that I remember while growing up. Tonight I was trying to find information about her and not having much success. Finally, I just googled her name, or rather as much of it that I knew. I found a whole web page about her and her family! http://www.marthachurchill.com/family/Crans-bio.htm.

Jeanette (left), Wilhelmina, and Peter Crans.

FROM LEFT: Peter Crans; his sister Jeanette Crans; his sister Wilhelmina Crans Curtis; Wilhelmina's baby, William Curtis; proud grandpa, Willem K. Crans, holding the baby; and proud grandma, Francoise Tjaden Crans.

Back row: Wm. Myrl McKindley, a fruit farmer who had just served in the Navy in WW I. Jeanette's sister, Wilhelmina Curtis, who was the Maid of Honor. Right: Peter Crans, the bride's brother, who served as Best Man. The little girl is Frances Curtis.

Ed and I took Michael and his girlfriend, Brittany, out to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, Liberatore’s, in Owings Mills. This was for his eighteenth birthday, Tuesday being his real birthday. We made plans to do this on Satuday but I didn’t quite realize that when he said he was on his own that he really meant he was on his own for his birthday.

Michele had to organize and speak at a conference for work out in Deep Creek and Justin and the other kids drove up to spend some time through Tuesday. Michael had to work at home in Hanover, PA, so he couldn’t go with them.

Michael and Brittany came back and hung out with Ed and me until about 9 PM. I finally got Michael to update his Geni profile. While we chatted about genealogy, Brittany mentioned that one of her ancestors was Wyatt Earp! She didn’t quite realize how cool that was so we looked him up on Wikipedia. Then Michael wanted to know about his ancestor who signed the Declaration of Independence, George Read.

Its so cute to watch Crissy settle down at the door, watching for Ed to come home from work. She seems to know just about the time he’s should be there.

She’s actually very happy with a schedule. When its time for bed she goes right into her crate without any coaxing beyond me walking towards the bedroom. The bad side to this is her relatively new routine of growling and barking at Ed when he comes to bed!

Well, I talked to Mom today and she wanted me to email her more often. I’m terrible at sending chatty emails so I decided to chatty blog instead. Not sure if this will be better than emailing but let’s try.

I got the Wyndham Commons board meeting minutes finished today. It took about 3 hours! There’s so much to do. I think I’ll take my laptop to the next board meeting and just do the minutes as the meeting progresses. I’m a 2 fingered typist so I’m not sure if this will work well or not but its worth a try.

Then Ed and I went to the grocery store, bought a couple of plants for the patio (finally) and came home for hamburger dinner. Now we’re watching Nurse Jackie - I like the show but her values are really screwed up.

Ed and I started counting steps as part of an effort to lose weight. I made it to 7,332 so far today. This week’s goal will be 7000+ steps a day, working towards at least 10,000 steps a day.

Saturday we went to two parties: the first was Michael’s high school and 18th birthday party; the second was Morgan’s 2nd birthday party. They had a beautiful day for both parties.