Iz mah birfday@

I turned 27 today. We were originally planning a trip to Santa Barbara to see friends and hang out at the dog-friendly beach, but that was before Honey got sick, so instead we slept in (which was AWESOME) and then took Honey to the vet. It was actually neat to be there and meet all the doggies Cameron tells me about, especially Jordan the boston terrier (whose blog can be found at www.wunderdog.blogspot.com) who's unbelievably cute (like, CUUUUUUUUUTE although Jordan seems to have a diabolical plot towards world domination). We went to Versailles for lunch and ate like pigs, but that's understandable because the food is really fantastic, and the cuban coffee is really strong. We also went to a military surplus store (cuz I'm classy like that) and I got a pin of my grandad's division (1st Marines) which I'm going to stick on the front of my 'grandad in world war II' research binder. After we picked Honey up from the vet we took the best nap ever and had 'scrabble beer fest '08' which probably would have been more fun if either one of us could spell, or knew any words longer than 4 letters. When the game was over (when I got bored and started dressing Honey up like my grandma - pics will follow tomorrow) Cameron had like 600 points and I had about 15, but I won because I made the word 'Honey'. Those are house rules. Then we took Honey for a walk and on a car ride to Trader Joe's and I got 2 birthday orchids. Im TOTALLY orchid-spoiled, and will post pics tomorrow, when I'm on a normal computer and not this mac thing I can't really work.

On another note - I've been doing genealogy research for about 4 years now, and recently I found the Northbrook Historical Society in Northbrook Illinois. Since three of the four immigrant families I'm descended from were 'founding members' of the town, they have a lot of genealogical info that pertains to them, and Ms. Judy H. was sweet enough to share it with me. I sent her a copy of the research I've done so far (for the surnames Dehne, Krause, Albert and Nicklas) and today she emailed me a file of info about the Nicklas family, which is so cool I can't even begin to explain it - I knew that Henry Nicklas had married a woman who alternately called herself Lena and Carline, but I couldn't figure out her maiden name or even what her first name really was. Northbrook had the info, so now I know her name was Caroline Helena Brautigan. It's really amazing to be able to give an actual name to someone who was born in 1836 and died in 1918 - she was my 3rd great grandmother, and until today all I knew was that she existed. I also now know the names of her daughters - I knew they were 'Emma' and 'Louisa' but after hours (and I do mean hours) glued to the ancestry computer at the LAPL There was still no records I could definitely assign to them. Today I know they were Emma Henriette Wilhelmine Caroline and Louise Frederike Maria. I'm not saying I love the names, but It's really neat to have into information, and kinda cool that it arrived on by birthday. I know have my family traced back to the people who originally hopped the pond - I'm starting the job of finding their villages and records they left in Germany and Denmark before they decided Illinois was the promised land and packed up their wheelbarrows. 

Honey has been stepped up to a whole pain pill, we didn't even realize she was hurting until we gave her the tramadol and all of a sudden we had a much happier dog on our hands. The vet said her mouth feels like it's "full of canker sores" so that explains why she's not eating as well as we would like. The weird thing is she will still play fetch, just not with as much gusto. When I'm done with this post, I'm going to render half a can of dog food to the consistency of baby food and spoon feed her while telling her how good she is.  This is going to be difficult because wet dog food is about the nastiest stuff I can think of, and I'm going to have to hand feed it. Oh well! No time like the present to get over my dog food aversion. First, however, I need to go make friends with my new orchids.