Babies

It's raining babies all around us! Chris is in Orlando this week visiting her nephew Jameson, her brother's first child. My high school friend Jody just announced he and his wife had their first child. My good friend from Buffalo, Mike, announced his wife just had twins. And my next-door neighbors, Steve and Kelly, have a newborn at home. Maybe if you combined them all, it might add up to a night's sleep.

Well, to all you new parents out there, congratulations! It is a difficult, strange, and wonderful journey you are on, and I hope you make the most of every minute. And, if you think changing diapers at 2AM is tough, try getting a 9 and 6 yr-old fed, to gymnastics practice, to hockey practice, finished homework, brushed teeth, and to bed all between 5 and 9PM (while your spouse is out of town!)...

Happy Feet

We went to see Happy Feet tonight. Very strange movie. Nothing like what I expected. With Robin Williams in an animated movie about penguins, I was expecting lots of Ice Age-like one-liners. It had those, but it was much more musical than I expected. And with a deep environmental theme beneath everything. Basically it was about how overfishing was causing the decline of penguins by depriving them of their food source. At one point, Michael leaned over and whispered, "either way, the fish lose". It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Family Tree

I've been fascinated by genealogy since I was a kid, and about a year ago I decided it was time to get serious about documenting my family tree. After about a year of research, I have taken it about as far as I can. I've been using software called Family Tree Maker, which allows you to publish your family tree to a web page, which is what I've done. The Chapin/Bourkney Family Tree can be viewed at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/c/h/a/Ted-Chapin/index.html. On this web site you can view an index of individuals, which lists data for that individual and allows you to traverse the family tree by clicking on links for parents and offspring. A plus sign next to a child's name indicates that person has children of their own. Another way to navigate the family tree is by following the InterneTree link, which displays a graphical family tree.

I hope you have fun browsing the family tree, and if you're a relative of Chris or Ted, by all means send us any data you have - birth days, locations, marriage dates, middle names, anything on any relatives - in-laws, half-siblings, step-children. We want to make it as complete as possible and a useful reference for anyone in the family.