Good morning!
Last night Louise showed me that she's started doing geneology research on her family, and it's so interesting.
She found the ship manifests that have the names and info about all four of her great, great grandparents who came over from Italy. I think three of them came from Sicily, all steerage class, with details such as their heights, ages, eye color, skin color, any distinguishing features (scar on face), and the addresses where they were headed to. She has two addresses in Little Italy that she's going to go look at, where her ancestors lived after arriving here in NYC in the turn-of-the-century. It's funny because all of them were small people, 5'2, 5'3. even the men, but Louise is the shortest in her immediate family at 5'9. Her brothers average 6'4, and her sister is 6'. So where that tall gene came from she'll try to find out!
If anyone is interested, the Ellis Island website has an extensive free search for those who came over by boat and went thru Ellis Island. They even have a "sounds like" feature, if your're not sure of a last name, but know what it sounds like. Amazing. And much of this info has been uploaded by volunteers of Mormons who are very much into geneology, so thanks to them, the Ellis Island search site is loaded with information.
And if you ever in NYC, I STRONGLY recommend taking a visit there. It's an amazing history lesson. And you get to see my daddy's name on the Wall of Immigrants (from Turkey) and my great grandmother (from Norway).
Kaz, are you back from Barbados???
Nan, don't you love us anymore? Give us some details about your Repo cruise! What are the chances you'll be on the NYE cruise?
Next week is Passover, and I'm looking forward to going over to celebrate with my brother's family. His wife is Jewish, (Cory's mom, my nephew who's coming with us on the cruise), and although they're not religious, they do a beautiful Passover Seder every year. I'm so lucky to be in a multi-cultural family. Wanna hear about it? OK!

(I'm chatty this morning, actually I'm trying to escape housework):
My dad is a Muslim from Turkey, my mom is a Lutheran from Brooklyn via Norway, my husband is a Catholic from the Philippines, his mother is from Spain. My sister is married (separated) to a Black Baptist Creole NYS trooper, my other sister has a brother-in-law who's gay and went to Canada to marry his significant other both named Joe, my brother is married to a Jew with family from Russia and Poland with family members who died in the Holocaust, and my other brother was engaged to a Buddhist from Thailand, but he ended up marrying a lovely girl from Morgan Hill, California and they're both in the Air Force. My uncle is married to a Puerto Rican with 9 kids. My other uncle is half-Irish, but that's a skeleton in my gramma's closet, bless her randy heart!
So there you have Aisling's family, a mix and match of mutts!!!!!!!!!!
Should I go do

now?? Nah!