Entries Tagged 'Friends and family' ↓

I took the photo at 10 a.m. Sunday, when it was 1 degree Fahrenheit outside.

Click a photo to open the slideshow:

Click for a larger photo.

Born at 2:22 p.m. today at 8 pounds, 21 inches. Welcome, little niece! And congratulations Jeff and Jenn!

When you were growing up, did your family have any secret little coincidences, inside jokes that no one else would get?

We had 222.

My parents seemed to stumble upon that number in one way or another over and over again, whether on license plates or in phone numbers.

For example, years ago when Mary and I and our four young kids moved to a new apartment in Dunkirk, N.Y., I was shocked to realize the address.

222 Townsend Street. Apartment 2.

When I told my mom, there was a stunned pause. Then, “No sir.” I think she still doesn’t quite believe me.

So today, as my brother Jeff marvels at the birth of his new baby girl, he watches the doctor write the time.

Jeff asks, “Did you just write 14:22?”

Yes. 2:22 p.m.

Welcome to the family, little Nora. You certainly are a Swerens.

… to hear from my brother and sister-in-law about the birth of their baby this morning. Jenn went to the hospital last night, and we’re waiting and wondering.

Our prayers are with Jeff, Jenn and the little one.

Cute photos from Sarita’s birthday party.

This is Mary’s grandmother, Rosina Maltese Guglielmo, as a young girl.

Go to our Flickr page for more historic photos, or better yet, see them as a slideshow.

Click on the above photo to see images from Halloween and Micah’s birthday!

We had friends over for supper. Mary made homemade chicken pot pies. But one of our guests is allergic to corn. So she made a special one just for him. But she didn’t want to forget which one had no corn. The result:

We took some photos in and around Wheeling:

Cherry Hill Road

I think that power plant in the distance is in Brilliant, Ohio.

From Wheeling Hill

Here’s an old abandoned railroad bridge that goes into an old abandoned train tunnel that, on the other side, crossed the river in to Martins Ferry, Ohio. We’re looking down the hill from McCullough’s LEap.

This photo is taken from about the same location, looking out into the valley where the Fulton area of Wheeling lies.

Pogues Run Road

This is Pogues Run itself, right beside the “back road” to Oglebay Park.

Wild turkeys!

Seen from Pogues Run Road, on the way to Oglebay Park.

See all of the photos on Flickr.

The girls taught us all how to play a card game called Baloney!

An entire deck of cards is dealt, and play goes around the table starting with player one being ace, player two being two, etc., through king and then back to ace. Each player places from one to four cards face down on the stack and says, for example, “Two aces.”

If no one challenges, play continues to the left. But if another player thinks it’s a lie, that player shouts, “Baloney!”

If the cards are not what the person claimed, the person who played those cards picks up the entire discard pile. If the cards are what the player said, then the challenger picks up the discard pile.

First person to discard his entire hand wins.

More photos from the fencing tournament on Monday.

Johnita and lamb, originally uploaded by Jon B. Swerens.

The techies at WebHero restored my blog! In honor, I’ve posted a couple of photos of Mary’s mom as a child.

Fulton Tire Shop, originally uploaded by Jon B. Swerens.

We’re going to slowly start scanning and posting photos that Mary has inherited from her family.

This one is of Fulton Tire Shop on National Road. Mary’s great uncle Pasty founded the store.

Go to our Flickr page to see more great photos!

Easter at our house, originally uploaded by Jon B. Swerens.

I’ve posted about 20 photos from our Easter celebration. Go over to my Flickr page to see them all.

Above, Sarita discovers how tricky her brothers are when hiding Easter eggs.

Easter eggs with natural color, originally uploaded by Jon B. Swerens.

Mary colored these Easter eggs today, experimenting with natural color from the juices of various foods.

Find out what foods she used by clicking on the photo above.

Hi! It’s been a while, eh? But Caleb had a fencing tournament on Monday, and I was able to borrow a little camera with video capability to record for posterity. (Caleb is on the left.)

Caleb’s fencing tournament from Jon Swerens on Vimeo.

This is called foil fencing. The silver vests they are wearing are called lamé, and they’re connected to a scoring box, which you can see on the floor to the right of the fencers.

The tip of the foil must be depressed while in contact with the lamé to cause the scoring box to beep in your favor with a red or green light. If the tip is depressed for any other reason — touching an arm, or the floor — the beep has an indicating white light.

But there are also rules about right of way, so you can score only if you were the fencer who began the attack.

You can read more here at Wikipedia.

And he won second place!

Caleb wins second place from Jon Swerens on Vimeo.

My family loves me. They buys me some books.

I got “My Life for Yours: A Walk Through the Christian Home” by Douglas Wilson from my sister.

My dear wife got me the following books:

• “The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape”
• “Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream”
• “The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community”
• “Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About the ‘Great Good Places’ at the Heart of Our Communities”

And then, with cash from my mom and my dad, I bought … another book! Yes, it’s “City Comforts: How To Build an Urban Village,” which I blogged about earlier. (Only one copy so far, David.)

So that’s six books on one birthday. Pretty sweet.

Plus! My dear children pooled their money and bought a typeface for me for that new project of mine: Corpa Gothic Light.

Thanks for being so thoughtful, everyone.

Good guess, Nancy, but no five bucks.

When I asked about the birds on our new anniversary lamp, former News-Sentinel columnist Nancy Nall made an intelligent guess:

Five bucks says those are cranes. You see them a lot in art deco/art nouveau fixtures, probably because both periods had a certain amount of Asian influence, and those Asians love ‘em some cranes.

Art Deco! Boy, I don’t know much about that style, except for some reason I always think of Miami Beach hotels, but I don’t think of the Chrysler Building, which I’ve actually seen once, I think.

This explains why Mary and I instinctively knew the lamp would look just right in our house. “Art Deco was a popular design movement from 1920 until 1939,” and our house was built in 1925. Perfect fit.

A friend of Mary’s on a homeschooling bulletin board said

depending on where this lamp was made, it might take on different popular birds… Art Deco usually focused more on song birds or exotic birds..

Durring the 1800’s in was very in vogue to have ornamental birds.. parrots, peacocks etc.. in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s the focus was more on hunting birds.. then in the 1920’sh period it was on exotic and song birds..

SO.. that being said, when this lamp was made and where (was it in france? the americas?) would be a big hint on the the type of bird. IF it was made in the later end of the art deco period, it would be possible that it could be a crane. I can’t find a picture of a real one with a curl, but I HAVE seen artist depictions of cranes with curls.

Hmm, so unlesss we get other information, we’re going to say our lamp features imperial pheasants. Here’s a photo she found of a scupture of a pheasant:

Today my dear Mary and I mark our 19th wedding anniversary. Nineteen years! What a wonderful, dear wife I have.

We can honestly say that our marriage has never been better. How God has blessed us so far beyond what we deserve.

But we didn’t know what to do to celebrate. Take a trip to Marshall, Michigan? Take a day trip somewhere else? Nah, it wouldn’t work this year. I had a short weekend, having to work Saturday and today. So we were kind of lukewarm on any plans.

Then about a week ago, we were browsing a yard sale and came across this floor lamp. We fell in love with it and knew it would look great in our living room

So, we spent the money we would have spent on a trip on the lamp instead. We think we made the right decision!

Below are some more detail photos of the lamp. The bird experts of the family don’t know what kind of birds are represented around the rim of the bowl. Let us know if you have a guess.