Mother's Day, Erica's Birthday et al.

Karen (Erica's mother in law) and Bill (father in law) hosted Mother's Day at their house. It was also a celebration of our beautiful daughter's 43rd birthday. It was a lovely afternoon with kids playing in the yard, dog (Acheson) running around after them and plenty of food to feed the small army that attended.
Jackson started his job at Sobey's, and we picked him up at 6PM. He was tired but the happiest looking boy!  Seems to have enjoyed his first day on the job. He is looking forward to more hours as the season progresses.
Erica gave me a lovely planter filled with begonias and vines, which now has pride of place on the front step.
Matt and Andrea spent the weekend at the boat, with a short visit from Jackson, whom Matt picked up in Lindsay from a "Me to We" conference. Jackson said they had a blast and did "all kinds of leadership stuff." No description of course.  LOL

As we drove to school this morning, J spotted a deer in the marsh by the highway! Lovely to see.

When I was going through some of the things Ronald brought back from storage, I found my grandmother's book of prayer, in which she had written down all the birth dates of various family members! What a wonderful discovery! The earliest entry is 1838, my great-grandfather, Michael Wayland. He came to Canada from Ireland in 1856. He married Philomene Chartrain in 1864, thereby acquiring for his family a whole slew of French ancestors, all the way back to 1628 in Québec. When I go on my Ancestry site, I find new hints to my family, which I love exploring. The Church kept wonderful records in Québec.

I have also been working on my mother's side of the family and discovered her father's knighthood papers, signed by King Edward the VII in 1919. He was a very young man, indeed, to receive an OBE. Then, I discovered pictures of my great uncle, "George" (not really George at all, but Hubert. Where he got George is a mystery, although his father's name was George. Go figure) He was a General in the Royal Marines, and became Marine ADC to King George VI (1946) and later to Prince Philip (1953). I dug around and found the Royal Marines website where I found his biography (military) and printed it to go with the pictures. I love this stuff. Not so much the "who they were" but the fact that I can trace my family.

I also spent several hours researching one of Ronald's ancestors (on his mother's side), who was a surgeon in the American Civil War. We have his sword, epaulettes and buttons, along with his photo. He died young and is buried in Minnesota. I would like to drive there sometime. Long way, though. Somehow, "the boss" is also related to the Earl of Gosford, who was the Lt. Governor of Lower Canada, but I haven't been able to dig far enough yet. The Earl's family name was Acheson. Some of their progeny moved to Lucan Ontario, where our lovely dog comes from.  Guess what her name is?  I will keep digging.

 Where did he go?