A New Beginning

It has been over 2 years since I posted anything on my blog. There was always something else that I was doing. Today I am announcing that I am resurrecting this blog with a completely new focus.

I recently started sending out a newsletter about the Sears Family. This newsletter contains information on our past as well as news about our present families. The source of this newsletter was the family tree that I have been working off and on for a number of years. I come from a very large family of Henry Joseph Sears and Annie Rebecca Keen. They had 14 children and it is to their descendants that the newsletter is aimed.

As an added tool I will be using this blog to publish some of the articles and pictures on this blog. I am hoping that the blog will also be another tool to connect distant relatives to one another.
I look forward to receiving your input and comments.

Joe

The Holy Land Experience

This past week Grace and I traveled to Orlando, Florida with a group of friends from church. The Corps Sergeant Major of the Corps, church, in Panama City arranged to use the church’s 15 passenger van so that we could all travel together. One couple went down on their own as they had a funeral of a family member to attend in the area of Orlando and met up with us at the hotel we were staying.

The purpose of our visit was to go to an attraction in Orlando called “The Holy Land Experience”. We had no sooner checked into the hotel when the CSM, Brady, received a call advising him that his sister had passed away so he and his wife, Beth, had to return home to PCB after just driving us down to Orlando. Fortunately the couple, who had driven down on their own, loaned Brady and Beth their vehicle so that we were all able to stay and visit the attraction that we had come to see.

Our visit to “The Holy Land Experience” was an interesting and also a spiritual experience as we took in the various featured venues live shows and presentations.

When you pass through the Jerusalem City Gate, we traveled back in time to an ancient land that is 2000 years old and 7000 miles away. On our journey we discovered a new world of information and understanding, and inspired through biblical stories, music, and dance. We became immersed in a land that still impacts our lives in many ways today.

It was indeed a “Holy Land Experience”.

What impressed me is the fact that each live show and presentation presented the good news of salvation.

Each of our experiences was very special with its own significance. Three in particular left a lasting impression on us.

The Scriptorium is a 55 minute tour that gave us a unique opportunity to discover how we got the Bible through authentic, ancient artifacts from around the world. It also made us realize the suffering and martyrdom of those that gave their lives so that we would have the word of God in our own language.

The Holy Land Experience has the largest indoor model of the city of Jerusalem, AD 66. A 30 minute presentation about the history and explaining the cities land marks during Christ’s final days.

The day closes with a 20 minute Musical Passion Drama depicting the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

Everyone was happy that we made the journey, both the journey to and from Orlando and also the journey that we had at “The Holy Land Experience.”

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Family Tree Research

Some time ago we received a copy of a letter that had been sent by a young man to all Schepens in Ontario. He interested in researching the Family Tree of his grandmother whose maiden name was Schepens. Grace’s maiden name is Schepens and upon contacting Chris we discovered that his grandmother was a sister of Grace’s father.

This proved to be a valuable contact and through Chris we have been put in contact with other members of Grace’s extended family. One of the contacts that Chris developed was a gentleman in Belgium and he was able to supply information about Grace’s grandfather Schepens and three generations further back into the 1700’s.

Another of Chris’s contacts is a cousin of Grace’s who has been working on the Schepen’s Family Tree. We were able to exchange information with her. This supplied us with a good deal of information on some of Grace’s present family.

The success with the research on Grace’s father’s family reignited our interest in the Grace’s mothers family heritage and of my parents heritage. Just before we left for Florida I signed up for a free 3 day trial of the internet site Ancestory.com. This exposed me to some great tools and was able to find some information on my great grandparents.

Once we reached Florida I purchased the newest version of Family Tree Maker software. By purchasing this program I received a 1 year subscription to the US portion of Ancestory.com. This allowed me to also purchase a one year subscription to Ancestory.uk at a much reduced price. The majority of my researching is being done on the UK site. I will shortly be subscribing to Ancestory.ca so that I can due research on the Canadian site.

Some of the information I have been able to find is:

• UK census information on Grace’s grandparents and great grandparents on her mothers side.
• Wedding information Grace’s grandparents. I have ordered a copy of their wedding license.
• UK census information on my grandparents and great grandparents on my fathers side.
• Wedding information on my grandparents. I ordered and received a copy of their wedding license.
• Wedding information on my great grandparents. I have ordered a copy of their wedding license.
• Similar information on my grandparents and great grand parents on my mothers side.

This has become a rewarding pass time. Hopefully I will be able to make further progress.

Cool Florida

We are fast coming to the close of our first month in Florida for 2007.

On the whole the month has been uneventful but restful. The weather is perhaps the coolest that we have had for the month of January since we starting going to Florida for the months of January, February and March. Last night the temperature dropped below freezing and is only expected to go up to 50F today. There is a freeze warning for tonight with further cool weather over the next two days. Hopefully the warmer weather that they are forecasting for the end of this week will materialize.

Still better than what they are having at home.

As mentioned our stay so far has been uneventful. We have renewed friendships both at Church and here in Gulf Highlands as well as making some new friends. Grace’s brother Eugene and his wife Monica are here again this year and we have been spending some time with them. Once a week, weather permitting, Grace and I participate in a fun shuffleboard league that we enjoy.

One night we went to the Kaleidoscope Theatre to see the play “Home Games” which we really enjoyed. Sitting across the isle from us was a couple that we knew from Woodstock, Ontario. They are in Panama City Beach until the end of February so we are planning to get together with them sometime this week.

As usual Grace has been working on some crafts, knitting a number of scarves and hats. She is now starting to do another afghan that she hopes to complete before we head home.

My time has primarily been spent investigating our family trees. I have found this very rewarding and my next post will be about the results of my research since arriving here in Florida.

That’s it for now.

December As Usual Very Busy

It all started when we returned from Calgary. A couple of days after we returned from Calgary we went on a bus tour trip to St. Jacob’s for the musical “Aladdin”. Sixteen of our Seniors Club at the church took the tour which was enjoyed by everyone.

The following week Grace and I made our usual trip to Bracebridge to check on Grace’s mother. We go up at least 3 times a year so that we can check on her. She turned 90 last year. On the way we stopped into Bayshore Village just outside Orillia and visited with Grace’s brother Eugene and his wife Monica. We make this stop and stay overnight each time that we head north to Bracebridge. The following day we made our way to Bracebridge with the intention of spending two nights there. When we heard that they were expecting a snow storm we decided to only stay one night and headed home at Noon on the Thursday. Fortunately we were able to accomplish all that we needed to do while visiting mom.

As we drove home we wondered if we had made a mistake as it was beautiful all the way until we reached Woodstock, 50 klm from home. We then realized that we had made the right decision as from there on we were in a blinding snow storm. Apparently it had been snowing all day in London and vicinity. We found that there were numerous accidents especially a serious one on the 401 Highway. We got off the 401 and headed up through Woodstock and had to take a number of back roads to finally reach home to find our driveway with over 6 inches of snow. Fortunately I was able to get the car into the garage allowing us to not worry about the snow until the next morning. Coming home it took us 3 hours to go the 300 miles to Woodstock and 1 ½ hours to go the final 50 klm.

We woke up the next morning to close to 2 feet of snow. The transit system, schools, university, and community college were all closed down. It is the first time that the buses did not operate after a snow storm. The daughter of one of our neighbours and her boy friend who had parked his car in our driveway overnight, helped me shovel out the driveway. A couple of hours later the snow plough came around and ploughed in 3 feet of snow across the bottom of the driveway again. I took my time over the next 2 days to clear it out.

On Sunday the 10^th we went to visit Rick at his group home. They had an open house for Christmas. Grace and I went as well as our daughters Barbara and Cathy. We then went to visit Barbara, John and their family and had dinner with them.

Over the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas I was out 3 times with a group from the Divisional Seniors Band as well as standing on kettles 3 times. In between we finished up the shopping we had to do for Christmas.

We had planned to travel into Barbara and John’s place on Friday December 22^nd to spend Christmas with them and their family. Unfortunately a good friend of our passed away and the memorial for him was held on the Saturday. I was asked by the family to present the eulogy for Jim at the memorial service. This meant that we did not get away to Oakville until late Saturday afternoon. On the way we picked up Rick to take him with us over Christmas. We attended the North Toronto Corps with the Clayton family on Sunday morning. The highlight of course was being there to see the boys open their gifts on Christmas morning and having Christmas dinner with some of our family. Late Christmas Day we headed home with Rick to prepare for our family Christmas with all our family that are still in Ontario. We are now quite spread out, Washington, DC, Calgary, Alberta and South Korea so our numbers will not be what they used to be.

On Boxing day we ended up with 23 for our family Christmas dinner. In attendance besides Grace and I were:

• Joanne who had come in the night before to spend time with Jennifer, Kevin and Jason.
• Jennifer, Jason and his fiancé Allyson
• Don and Cathy
• John, Barbara, Matthew, Spencer and Cameron
• Michael, Melody, Joseph and Scott
• Rick
• Gary and Laurie and 3 of their boys Michael, Brian and Kevin. Gary and Laurie are old friends from our church in Brampton. They are also now our Corps Officers (Ministers) of our church.

It was a busy day with dinner and the opening of the family gifts. To top it off we had 12 stay overnight before leaving for home the next day.

Once everyone had left we then started to pack and get ready for our trip to Panama City Florida. We left on Saturday December 31^st arriving in PCB at 4:30 PM.

Grace and I thank the Lord each day for our family and the way they love one another. They enjoy being together and letting their hair down. We also miss those that are no longer living close enough to join with us.

More later.

Our Visit To Calgary

Grace and I spent just about the whole month of November visiting family in Calgary. It was our second visit to Calgary since we had some of our family move there in 2004.

The first week was spent in Calgary with Stephen and Gayle and our grandchildren. On the weekend Joanne picked us up to visit with her and Bruce and to see their new home in Okatokes which is just south of Calgary. On Sunday we went into church at the Berkshire Corps where Stephen and Gayle are the Corps Officers and then returned to Stephen and Gayle’s to prepare for out trip to Fairmont Hot Springs with their family.

On Monday morning we left for Fairmont Hot Springs where Stephen and Gayle had booked a Condo for a week away with the family. Fairmont Hot Springs is about a 5 hour drive from Calgary into the Rocky Mountains and is actually in BC. The trip to the condo was good with the exception that both Stephen and I had our windshield cracked by a passing large truck that threw up stones when we were going through a period of slush and snow. (I leased a vehicle for the week)

FHS is situated in a beautiful valley with mountains all around us. Unfortunately there was no snow so the ski hills were not open. I imagine the scenery would be much more spectacular once the snow fully arrives. The condo was very nice and it we spent a good week away from all distractions and had a chance to relax and enjoy our time with the family. We were able to enjoy time in the indoor swimming pool, especially the kids.

We took a drive up to the ski hills and on the way down we were stopped by a group of mountain goats who were walking on the road. Unfortunately the pictures that I took did not turn out very well. The trip home proved to be a little more stressful as a snow storm was moving in.

One day we took a walk up to a water fall that leads from one of the hot springs. At the bottom of the falls is as pool so Stephen and the kids rolled up their pant legs and waded into the water. Emily had the unfortunate experience of slipping and falling fully clothed into the water. This required a quick trip back so that we could get her out of her wet clothes. The next day they all went back and went in again, this time in their bathing suits. We hated to leave this beautiful spot. The trip home proved to be a little more stressful as a snow storm was moving in.

Once we returned to Calgary we spent a few more days with Stephen and Gayle before going back to Okatokes for the last few days to spend time with Joanne and Bruce. On the Tuesday Joanne took us to Great Falls, Montana where we spent time doing some shopping and sightseeing. We stayed overnight in Great Falls before returning to Okatokes.

While we were in Calgary and Okatokes we had the opportunity to visit with Ian Lindberg, the son of mine who died in 2004. One day Ian took us out to lunch and then on the Sunday before we left for home Ian and his friend came to spend an afternoon with us at Joanne and Bruce’s home in Okatokes.

The past week the temperature turned very cold with temperatures dropped drastically. On the day that we were to leave the temperatures had dipped to -30C which combined with some snow caused many flights to be cancelled. For a while we didn’t think we would be leaving that day but fortunately our flight was not cancelled. When Joanne drove us to the airport the temperature with the wind chill factor was -37C. That is cold.

Although delayed due to the weather our trip home was uneventful. My next post will deal with our busy month of December.

A Fall Update.

A lot has happened since I last posted on August 31, 2006.

The seniors’ band continued to keep me busy with their practices and engagements. Added to that were the activities at the church. I started to again play with the band at the church and on occasion have been asked to do some practices and conducting on Sundays. I agree provided they realized that I would be away a good deal of the time.

We enjoyed celebrating the Canadian Thanksgiving that was hosted by Don and Cathy. There were about 20 in attendance including family and friends.

Joining us was Grace’s cousin Chris Colman who we had only recently met. Chris is working on his family tree on his mothers side (Schepens) and had sent out letters to Schepens that he could find in the telephone book. One of the letters was passed on to us by Grace’s brother Eugene as he knew I was interested in our Family Tree. It turned out that Chris’s grandmother was Grace’s aunt Rose and we have struck up a friendship with Chris. This has also lead to us being in contact with a number of other members in the family. I will be writing more about our Family Tree in another post.

Just after Thanksgiving we traveled to Fairfax, VA to spend a week with David, Evie, Jonathan and Joshua. On the Saturday Oakton High School hosted a marching band competition which we attended and really enjoyed. Joshua plays in this band and as the hosting band and not in the competition they were featured at the end with their performance.

Upon returning from Virginia we started to get ready for our trip to Calgary. More about that in my next post.

Sabattical Is Over.

Well, we arrived safely in Florida so I will now do my best to start posting again. Watch for further posts.

I Wish You Enough

Below is a message that I recently received from a friend.

To each person who reads this message, "I wish you enough"

Recently, I overheard a Mother and daughter in their last moments together at a regional airport. They had announced her departure and standing near the security gate, they hugged and she said, "I love you. I wish you enough."

She in turn said, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom." They kissed and she left.

The elder woman walked over toward the window where I was seated. Standing there, I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy, but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?"

"Yes, I have," I replied. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?" I asked.

"I am old and she lives much too far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is, the next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.

"When you were saying good-bye I heard you say, "I wish you enough. May I ask what that means?"

She began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone." She paused for a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and she smiled even more.

"When we said 'I wish you enough,' we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them," she continued. Then, turning toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye."

She then began to sob and walked away.

My friends and loved ones, I wish you ENOUGH!!! They say "It takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them."

Send this phrase to the people you'll never forget and also remember to send it to the person who sent it to you. It's a short message to let them know that you'll never forget them. If you don't send it to anyone, it means you're in a hurry and that you've forgotten your friends.

Take the time to live~

My friends and loved ones, I wish you ENOUGH !