Mount Washington Summit

with the towel pharoah headgear

During the Winter and Spring Roger taught after school Lego Engineering at 2 different schools, and later in the year got to see the Lego Team from Byron Center go to the Regional Finals and then the State Finals of First Lego League.

Lisa, Minor and Mary Lee ready to dine on the porch. RIP Minor.

The last piece of the Green Mountain Railway line still on the mountainside. The rows of spikes set into the rock mark the route of the tracks.

At the summit of Mount Washington.

On June 11 Roger had surgery on his right knee to repair a tear in the medial meniscus. The surgery went very well and he came home on crutches after the surgery and was walking on it again the next day. That knee is much better now.

Zoe and Friends at Zoe's 9½ birthday party at Gun Lake.

At the end of June we “camped” at Gun Lake, about 20 minutes south of Caledonia for Zoe’s 9½ birthday for a couple of days with Kurt and Ann, Zoe and a bunch of her friends. It was unnecessarily hot, so the proximity of the lake was a good thing.

Looking along the two lines of Luminaria

Roger, Ann Christensen and Lisa Christensen. Ann is married to Lisa's cousin, and is a breast cancer survivor.

We took part in both of those. The 24 hour “Relay for Life” turned out to be about 21 hours – we had great weather Friday afternoon and evening which was particularly good for the luminaria ceremonies – a bag with a candle in it for each person being remembered or honoured by participants, but cold rainy weather on the Saturday morning drained the enthusiasm and the organisers decided to let us stop early, so we could get our sites packed up and tidied away.

the shiny propellor cones kept us amused...

what you get when there are no balloons above the baskets...

In July Roger’s brother Alistair arrived for one of his very quick visits on his way to a computer conference somewhere in the USA. We paid the obligatory visit to the giant horse at Meijer Gardens in the morning as well as a quick tour through downtown Grand Rapids. In the afternoon we headed off to Jackson – about 1½ hours away – to see a hot air balloon festival. Alas the weather gods weren’t smiling on us – it was too windy for them to attempt to launch the balloons, so we had to make do with some flying demonstrations by a small number of World War II planes, as well as watching the balloon pilots shoot flames into the air from their burners without the balloons. But we did have fun taking our pictures in the super shiny propellor cones on the old planes.

Kyle and Zoe - Banner Carriers for WMGS

Kyle doing his thing while Kathy and Zoe look on.

As the end of Summer approached we again attended a series of free (to members) concerts at the Meijer Gardens. For 5 weeks the weather co-operated beautifully, and one of the concerts had a very memorable ending when a meteorite was seen streaking across the sky above the amphitheater stage.

September saw us heading to Wisconsin with Lisa’s Mum (well she came with us after Roger went to Ann Arbor and picked her up) to attend a Christensen family get together in honour of cousin Sue’s marriage to Bill. They had been married sometime earlier, but this was a chance for most of the Christensens to get together to meet Bill. So we drove the 6 hours to Wisconsin on a Friday, and back home again on Sunday.

almost as far as the eye can see - strawberry fields, machines and farm workers.

Western Michigan Genealogical Society celebrated its 55th anniversary the first weekend in November with an Awards Banquet and a Seminar. Roger was the lead organiser for this, and we hosted “The Genealogy Guys” – 2 speakers from Florida who presented a programme at the Awards Banquet, and then each made 4 presentations during Saturday to a little over 100 people. Roger received “The President’s Award” for having “displayed outstanding leadership and involvement in the organisation”. That is the first time this award has been given.

Around home the big outside project for the year was raising the front porch up. It was levelled up on 7 jacks and then 8 new posts set 3-4 feet into the ground in concrete to hold it up – the poor construction job done originally had allowed the front edge of the porch to sink – in places up to 4 inches (10 cm) – pulling the porch roof down with it. That took Roger quite a few weeks towards the end of Summer, and even though it needs finishing off next year it certainly looks a lot better than it did!! Lisa had several periods of being laid off from her job for a week or more at a time. Several rooms got new curtains and shades, all hand made, a fresh coat of paint and the dining room also got its wood floor refinished.

Lots of other photos and blog posts are available from the Home Page

©2010 Roger’s Ramblings. All Rights Reserved.

Happy Holidays From Caledonia, MI, USA December 2008 (You can click an image to see a larger version of it)

Hi Everyone

Winter has arrived here in Michigan – actually it arrived a few weeks ago with temperatures below freezing, snow, and a huge freeze in the American economy. Thankfully, despite all the doom and gloom in the American car industry, right now Lisa’s Delphi Corporation plant is still open and she still has a job there. Hopefully the knuckleheads at the car companies, the Government and the United Auto Workers union will figure something out to prevent this from all crashing down. Since General Motors is still Delphi’s largest customer, as well as providing support for Delphi’s former GM workers, it’s hard to imagine that if GM goes away, Delphi will last more than a few minutes longer.

Jane and Lisa out on the Grand Haven Pier

We had several visits to Meijer Gardens this year – including a first for us – a night time visit to see the butterflies. That was interesting as instead of them flying around they were mostly hanging on various trees trying to sleep while people shined lights on them. We went with Kurt, Ann, Kyle and Zoe that night. We also went later in the year when Jim, Kim and Katherine came for a visit. Roger had a visit there with Jane Fletcher – a daughter of friends from New Zealand who stayed with us for a couple of days as she travelled across the USA on her way to Europe. And we also had a visit with Goldie, Jacob, Bailey and Brenden when they were visting from Georgia.

The Graceful Descent

Early in the spring we volunteered again at the local Science Olympics as judges for the bottle rocket contest. This involves students designing and making a rocket based on a plastic “pop” bottle that is filled with a mix of water and compressed air and launched upward by the air forcing the water out the opening. The winner is the rocket that stays up in the air longest. The students devise all sorts of methods of trying to keep the rocket up in the air. Parachute mechanisms are common, but the day’s winner was a group that designed their rocket very long and light. When it reached the top of its flight laid it over on its side and floated so gently back down it outlasted even the best deployed parachute.

The Nesting Duck under the Rose

In early Summer a mallard duck decided that she wanted to build her nest under a large rose bush that is about 10 feet (3 m) from our garage. There was much activity there and eventually 14 eggs were laid. But over a period of a few days we noticed that most of the eggs had disappeared – a critter of some sort was coming at night and taking them. The likely suspect was a raccoon, who we had several of around the place until a concerted effort with a live trap reduced their numbers, (and hopefully eliminated them altogether!!).

Finally the water garden in front of the house is finished, and over the summer became home to 2 water lilies, 18 goldfish (which by attrition became 8 goldfish) and several frogs and toads.

The Toad and the Ant

Another interesting nature event happened in June when Roger noticed a large moth, apparently just hatched from its chrysalis, while he was mowing the lawn one afternoon. It turns out that it was a Cecropia Moth, one of the largest moths in North America, just out of its chrysalis on one of our small oak trees. It was about 4 inches across the wings (the wooden stake beside it is about ¾² (20mm) square).

Luminaria Bag for Joan

One event we have participated in for several years now is the annual “Relay for Life” 24 hour walk to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Of course we don’t walk for 24 hours, but are part of a team headed by cousin Ann who does try to have someone from the team walking for the whole 24 hours. This year’s event was punctuated by some very severe weather soon after it started. Those of us who were there were ordered off the walking track to take shelter inside the school gymnasium while violent thunderstorms went over and about 2 inches of rain fell – and it was about 90°F (30°C) so very unpleasant weather. One of the highlights of the walk each year is the lighting of the luminaries – paper bags named and decorated for cancer survivors and cancer victims with a candle inside them to light them in the dark. Each year Lisa’s bag in honour of her Mum’s survival is a work of art, and unfortunately each year the bag ends up catching fire when the wind blows it. Next year we have plans to make it last, including having battery powered candle lights inside it instead of a real candle. Later in the year we participate in the “Annual Walk for the Cure”. This is for breast cancer research, again on a team organised by Ann, herself a breast cancer survivor. This is a 5km walk through downtown Grand Rapids again to raise money for the American Cancer Society.

At the end of May we set out on this year’s big trip – driving to Newark, Delaware to visit Minor and Mary Lee for a small Porch Party with Anne and Steve from Baltimore. Then on up the east coast, through New York, to Bar Harbor, Maine where we stayed with Steve and Jane for a few days while helping them out with this year’s fundraiser put on by some of the inn-keepers in Bar Harbor. It was held at Cleftsone Manor which is one of the few Victorian era “super-rich persons houses” built on “Millionaires Row” that survived a big fire in Bar Harbor in 1947. The theme was the 1920s with Prohibition, so we had arranged a door with a peephole that people had to knock on to get entrance to the “Speakeasy”. Jane and Mindy excelled themselves with excellent food. Lisa and Roger dressed up nice and mingled with the guests, and Roger took lots of photos of the guests and events, including a “raid” by the local policemen dressed up as 1920s era FBI agents who came to arrest the inn’s owner for liquor violations. The handcuffs were real police handcuffs! Lisa’s dress for the evening was a replica she had made of a dress her grandmother Evelyn had made for herself to wear as her wedding dress when she married Harvey Christensen in 1927. It fit perfectly with the 1920s theme of the fundraising evening. Lisa has also made miniature replicas of this dress for Kathy, Zoe and Kayla for their American Girl dolls.

View from Cadillac Mountain out over Atlantic Ocean

While in Bar Harbor we managed to “waste” an afternoon trying to find the path of the long defunct Green Mountain Cog Railway which went to near the top of Green Mountain (now Cadillac Mountain) in the first half of the 1880s. The line was removed sometime afterwards, but evidence of its path still remains, mainly in the form of large iron spikes driven into the rock that held the tracks to the side of the mountain. Once we found the line of these we were able to follow them well up to the top. Next year we need to

find where the line left from Eagle Lake, and then knees permitting follow it all the way to the top of Cadillac Mountain.

Lady Slipper Orchid

We also managed to find some of the Lady Slipper Orchids that were blooming on Cadillac Mountain near one of the hiking trails on the mountain.

The Clan Moffat Society AGM was in Chicago this year – the closest one we’ve been to in 11 years of attending – just a 3 hour drive away. It was very hot there the day of the Highland Games. The “highlight” of this year was the unknown idiot who was smoking in the room of his non-smoking hotel. Around midnight he set off the hotel’s fire alarm. Once we’d woken up enough to realise what the awful electronic noise was about, there were Moffats in various stages of dress and undress assembled in the car park for 20 minutes or so waiting for the fire brigade to arrive and tell us it was OK to go back inside.

Fuel Delivery on Mackinac Island

July saw us at Uncle George’s house for a few days for the biennial Christensen family reunion – AND it was George and Bev’s 50th wedding anniversary. After that we headed north to Mackinaw City with Kurt, Ann, Kyle and Zoe; Jim, Kim and Kathy and Joan for a few days, including a day out on Mackinac Island. There are no cars on Mackinac Island. Tourists either get around on foot, which we did, or bicycle, which we also did or by horsedrawn transport. Even deliveries around the town are done with real horse power.

Unfortunately our time there was cut short by a phone call from the neighbour telling us that he’d just discovered our power had gone out and the basement had flooded. The battery powered emergency sump pump had given out as well (its battery was close to dead, and the pump itself barely working). It turns out that just our power (none of our neighbours) was out. It was about 10 hours before he discovered it. This was the worst flood we’ve had, covering almost all of the basement floor with water. The power was restored and the pump running again by the time we got home around midnight. This started a massive cleanout of the basement over the next days and weeks. A lot of wet cardboard boxes and old computers were recycled, more shelves and raised flooring was put in to get things off the floor. A whole new battery powered emergency sump pump with a massive new battery was installed. Hopefully this won’t ever happen again, but when it does at least we hope the new battery system will run long enough to prevent such a mess again.

August saw Uncle Roger and “the kids” on their second annual trip to Greenfield Village. This year it was Kyle, Zoe, Kathy and Kittima. Kittima is an exchange student from Thailand staying with Kurt and Ann for the school year. She is a senior at Byron Center High School. The weather was much nicer this year than the rain of last year, so of course there were more people and the lines were longer, but we got a ride on most of the historic vehicles that are running around the village.

September saw us heading off to Oshkosh Wisconsin for the wedding of Lisa (not Christensen) and Jake. Lisa is Lisa’s cousin’s step-daughter. It was a great wedding, not marred at all by the unhelpful weather, and the surprise attendee was Kyle Sprouse (another of Lisa’s cousins’ children) back for 10 days leave from the US Army in Iraq. He arrived late in the day before the wedding. The trip back was interesting in that one of the major highways through Chicago was closed by flooding. We managed to get off that road onto another highway with seconds to spare and made it home another way. Kurt and Ann, about 30 minutes ahead of us on the road weren’t so lucky and were diverted off the closed road onto the local streets of south Chicago, some of which were also flooded, to try and find their way.

We have both continued to be involved in the Western Michigan Genealogical Society during the year, and Roger continues with various duties for the Clan Moffat Society, and has taught Lego Engineering at 2 different local schools after having passed a State background check that it was OK for him to be on school premises in contact with the children.

So here we are getting ready for Christmas again. As always this will be at Lisa’s Mum’s house and Aunt Carol’s house, with cousin Mary and her children Samantha and Mikey coming in from California, Mike and Joyce coming from Missouri and Ralph coming from Detroit.

Roger and Lisa Pirates

Oh yeah – we were still involved in Dinner Club too. Several themes throughout the year – perhaps the best one was Pirate Night. Others included Hawaiian Luau Night.

We wish you the best for Christmas, the Holidays and for 2009.

©2010 Roger’s Ramblings. All Rights Reserved.

Hi Everyone

I’m afraid this is going to be a bit late this year, particularly for those not in the US. Looking back now it’s hard to remember where the year went.

In April, Lisa’s brother’s family came for a visit (Jim, Kim and Kathy) to see the butterflies at Frederick Meijer Gardens. We took Zoe, the daughter of Lisa’s local cousins, with us. The two girls had lots of fun together being silly and racing around the outdoor exhibits, including being squashed by the giant horse.

The Clan Moffat Society AGM this year was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada at the start of July. We were there for Canada Day on 1 July. This is the 10th AGM we’ve been to. The first one we went to was also in Halifax in 1998. Roger drove the car out to Halifax – about 1550 miles (2500 km) each way. This involved 3 border crossings – US –> Canada –> US –> Canada going and the reverse coming home again, arriving in Halifax in time to pick Lisa up from the airport on a Saturday evening. We then had 4 days to travel around the southern part of Nova Scotia –before being back in Halifax by Thursday. It’s quite a bit cheaper to drive the car than to both fly and then get a rental car.

Our travels included staying two nights in Digby, which is situated just off the Bay of Fundy – home of the highest tides in the world. The picture to the left shows the wharf at Digby, where the tides rise and fall more than 25 feet (7 metres) while other parts of the Bay of Fundy have tides that exceed 50 feet (15 metres). This part of Nova Scotia was settled by Europeans in the very early 1600s (several years before Williamsburg!!!), and Lisa has managed to trace some of her ancestors to these first settlers. We visited the “Melanson Settlement” where the Melanson family lived in the 1600s, and which in recent years has been the site of an archaeological dig by “Parks Canada”. We were also able to go to the local museum and see some of the artifacts from the dig on display. When that was over Lisa flew home, and Roger spent 3 days driving back again.

In August Uncle Roger got to take Kyle, Zoe and Kathy to Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield village for a day. Lisa’s grandfather Harvey Christensen worked for Henry Ford and at Greenfield village so it was fun to take the kids where their great-grandfather had worked more than 70 years ago. Kyle took great pleasure in showing and telling anyone who would listen that it was his great grandfather in the picture we had with us showing Harvey with Henry Ford – Harvey driving a horse carriage (the old way of travel) and Henry driving his first Model A car built in 1903 – the new way of travel.

Late September saw us flying off to New Zealand for 12 days – we went there to attend the 50th Anniversary of Scott Base (Antarctica where Roger worked for a year) festivities, which included a 500 person banquet on a Saturday evening. The banquet was held at the Wigram Air Force Museum. We sat amongst, and in some cases under the wings of, the olde aircraft that are on display there. We got to meet up with a few people at the banquet and other events who had been to Scott Base with Roger, as well as others we knew who had been at Scott Base previously.

We had synchronised plans with the rest of Roger’s family so for the first time since Mum’s funeral in 2004 the Moffat family was together again for a couple of days with Alistair and his family over from Australia, and Ruth and her family down from Auckland. Lisa hadn’t been to New Zealand since 2003. So we did some of the usual things together, and some of the unusual – like going to Springfield in a howling Nor’ West gale to see the giant donut that had been erected there a few months earlier for the opening of “The Simpsons” movie. Time was quite limited on this trip, so we didn’t get to make the usual trip down to Dunedin and Balclutha to see family there, or to catch up with other friends in Christchurch.

In November Roger had surgery on his left ankle – the same foot that was injured 25 years ago when the blade came off the lawnmower. Since then the ankle had slowly developed “problems” with the joint, and with a tendon that holds the foot to the leg, so surgery was undertaken to clean out the scar tissue and shorten the tendon. The first 4 weeks afterward were no weight at all on the leg, so there was a bright pink cast to hold everything in place, and a nifty scooter to get around the house on. Now there’s 5 weeks with a large plastic “boot” and a gradual progression to weight bearing, so the crutches and scooter still get some use. Luckily the weather hasn’t been too extreme, so not being able to get outside to deal with the snow hasn’t been as big a problem as it could have been.

Another achievement during the year was the planting of a crab apple tree at Hidden Lake Gardens in memory of Lisa’s father. The gardens actually purchased and planted two identical trees and planted them together, so Lisa’s mother, Joan, has purchased the other one to be her memorial.

We wish you the best for Christmas, the Holidays and for 2008.

©2010 Roger’s Ramblings. All Rights Reserved.