Home At Last

The twins come home in a cool car without infant seats...

Greg's Toothy Smile

Travailles

I just talked to Tim. Al and Do are on their way back from Arizona. Tim put a bookmark on their computer for our Blog. So maybe they will take a look when they get back home. Tim will remind them this week. Maybe Tim will post a note sometime.

No Glasses

I always assumed we (especially Jean and I) inherited our poor eye-sight from mom. There are a number of pictures where she isn't wearing glasses. Apparently her eye-sight wasn't nearly as bad as ours. Perhaps we should be asking Aunt Dorothy. Do any of you have Aunt Dorothy's email address? Perhaps we should be inviting her to the Robin. I bet we could think of a lot of questions for her...

Held By Strangers!

Do you guys have any idea who these strangers are that are holding you?

9 minute eruption

It is now 10:25PM Alaska time, and if you happen to go
here quickly you can see on radar what the volcanoe looks like when it erupts. An eruption of Augustine occurred at about 8:12 PM AKST, with vigorous activity begininning about 8:24 PM and lasting about 9 minutes and ending soon thereafter. An ash cloud up to about 40,000 feet has been confirmed and is drifting to the southeast. An ashfall advisory is in effect for Kodiak Island until 8AM Saturday morning. More information can be found at http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/augustine.php
I saw it at work a few days ago on this same weather radar loop. If the time has passed you might check back and you might catch it again.

More Fun

Too Much Fun

Fuzzy Wuzzy

Is this the bear that was named Fuzzy Wuzzy?

Playing On The Floor

'Remember these toys? I don't think I do - did you all destroy them before I joined the family?

Eight Year Gap
I finished scanning the second box of slides tonight. I've got one more box to go - 7 cassettes. It looks like we have a gap between '58 and '65. 'Any ideas where those slides would be?

Hiatus?

Paul says he was on a hiatus. Was he gone for awhile? I didn't notice anything. Did anybody else? Who is this "Paul" anyway? Is anybody here related to a "Paul"?

Grandma Carlson

Summertime in Australia

Here are some photos from Holly and Amy. They have Christmas in the summer there. The white sandy beaches kind of look like snow. Warm snow.

Halloween 1954

Greg Learning To Walk

I'm back. My hiatus is finally over. It's been a little difficult to get computer time lately, but I finally found some time to do some more scanning. I've got some great pictures from '54-'55 (before I joined the family) and then some more good stuff from the '70s. This is going to be fun.

Main Street

Here are a couple of Brookston photos from 1939. The first is main street. The Stynsberg store is the second building on the right. You can also see the bridge at the end of the road. I think maybe Dick and Bette Matthews lived in the first house on the right?









This is the school. You can see Gymnasium written on the barn shaped building.

Augustine

Mark, I've been pulling up the web-cam for Augustine every day lately. One of the things I almost forgot was how dark it is there in the winter. It looks like the sun doesn't rise until 9:00 this time of year. So far I haven't been able to see the peak with the web-cam I've been looking at. I think it's probably in a bad location - I suppose it's smoke from the volcano blocking the view. Today I was extremely lucky. The web-cam caught sight of a bird (above). What kind of bird do you think this is? An Osprey?

Business in Brookston

Here are some more photos of the 7-11 of 1937. This is Grandma Stynsberg with the plants inside the store/gas station.





"Lilly Haugen riding in style as queen of the 1936 fair." I do not know Lilly, but that is the store in the background.







This is Grandma Stynsberg and her brother Carl Larson and his store behind. I think he helped grandma and dad survive after Alexis Grandpa Stynsberg died in 1929? maybe? Perhaps Greg and Paul inheirited some tall genes from Carl.






Time exposure of the store in 1938. Looks like they have a new gas pump moved more toward the front.

my visit to Duluth

Hi guys, I just spent a day and a half in Duluth. I had an opportunity to ride up with our friends the Pieh's so I went. I stayed with the Towns as Lorraine has been there since she was released from the hospital. Lorraine is doing much better. We so much appreciate them...if we didn't have them we would have probably had to convince her to come to the Cities or had her in a nursing home.
I decided to call Dick and Bette Matthews today. " Hi" to you all from them. He is "Bob" or Robert in Duluth and is listed as Robert R. Matthews in the phone book. I've been wanting to ask them if they have any geneology of that side of the family. They don't. I didn't get to talk to Bette because she has insomnia but can sleep in the morning. They are in fairly good health but Bette has episodes of severe pain with colitis. I had an opportunity to ask some questions about their family, too. I should probably get a prize! Rob lives in Mpls, Rick in Grand Junction, CO, and Jan and Sue live in the Duluth area. Dick and his sons traveled to Ireland in the fall and enjoyed it so much that they want to go back. Matthews is Irish.

I enjoyed catching up with them once again. I am going to try to find the phone number for Charles andVirginia Austin's daughter Peggy (I used to have it). I think she lives in Brooklyn Center. We don't have too many links with Dad's side of the family any more, especially since we don't have family reunions with any of them.

Augustine started erupting

Augustine has started out with several small eruptions. Thankfully the wind has kept ash from falling on us in Nikiski. Here is a link to
the volcanoe.

Thanks

The coach wanted each swimmer to raise $100 in their attempt to swim 100 miles in 12 hours. Not only did Peter raise more than $100, but the team finished the 100 miles in less than eight hours! The coach was amazed that they achieved the goal and that they achieved it so quickly, especially since only 12 of the 20 swimmers were able to participate. How much did each swimmer swim? You do the math. Thanks.

Who the heck is SAM?

There is an ongoing conversation about the relative merits of a particular movie named "Napoleon Dynamite". Fine and good. But!!! Somebody entered a comment on the subject with the nom de plume of "Sam". Who the heck is "Sam"? I must confess that I don't like the fact that undeclared "entities" can have their say at our site without identifying themselves. Am I wrong? Who is SAM?
By the way, thanks to Katy, when I was last out on errands I stopped in at the local video store to pick up "Napoleon" and was dismayed to find that it was available only in VHS format. When I complained, the lady told me that "Napoleon Dynamite" was the most popular movie in the store to be "rented" and never returned. She desparately wanted to have the movie in dvd format but given the rate of "rip-offs" she had a hard time defending her conviction.

The Many Faces Of Tyler

You may recall these pictures from Tyler's graduation announcement...

Pal and the Hummer

Here is a picture of dad's dog Pal. I think this is the back of their store. If you look closly you can see their HUMMER parked in front of the store!

Hey Tyler!

Did anybody notice the appearance at the blog by Tyler? It's my habit to greet new people with a picture of them, but I just frantically breezed through ten years of sporadic (at best) photos, and I can't find one of Tyler. Perhaps someone else can come to my assistance here.

Happy New Year!

I hadn't intended to, but I guess I kind of took a holiday vacation too.

One thing that happened during the holidays was Peter being in an accident. Thankfully no one was injured. The two insurance companies will now analyze and decide how much each driver was at fault. I'll give a few facts and let's see who among us is best at assigning blame.

Peter is a conscientious driver, but when I first heard what happened I was pretty sure that Peter was at fault. When I helped him type up his recall of the details I began to waver. Here's Peter's recollection. I'm guessing it is close to accurate. There are witnesses who will confirm the major points (except which lane the other driver was in).

"I was traveling north on Hadley Avenue intending to go west at Hwy 36. At the intersection with Hwy 36 the light was red. I put on the left blinker and moved left into the left-turn-only lane and waited for the light to turn green.

" When it turned green I checked out the intersection and began to move forward and to the left a little. I saw a car approaching the intersection from the north, driving south on Hadley going about 20 mph. I began to brake again until I was sure the car was turning right or west onto Hwy 36. At this time I was not at all in the oncoming traffic lane. The other car had its right blinker on and I thought it was in the right-turn-only lane, so I again started to make my turn left (west) onto Hwy 36.

"Almost immediately I realized the car was not turning right (west) but heading south so I braked again and came to a stop, but by this time my drivers-side bumper was in the oncoming traffic lane. The other car did not brake at all and did not swerve at all. Its drivers –side-front bumper collided with mine. The other car did not stop until it was 100 feet away to the south on Hadley past the intersection. My car did not move. It remained in the intersection with the front left bumper slightly in the oncoming traffic lane.

Just a bit of humor.....

For all of you Napoleon Dynamite fans out there, I thought this picture was pretty good for a laugh. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it, but let me warn you, you'll either love it or hate it. There's not much middle ground.

Hiatus To Be Ending Soon

I will be ending my holiday posting hiatus soon. While you're waiting for my return you may want to check out some of the "easter eggs" I've been planting with my posts...

Actually, I was really hoping one of you would discover what I've been doing and share your discovery with everyone. Since no one came through I find myself needing to reveal the secret.

What do I mean by "easter eggs"? With all of my posts going back to early October I've added a link to the title. Just click on the title and you'll be taken to a site vaguely related to the day's post. Some of the sites are lame, but some are humorous. Hopefully this will keep you busy until I return.

I did find some time to do some scanning a few days ago. I've got some great pictures coming...

Dad

Here are some more photos from 1936 (hands in back), 1936 (hands in pockets) 1937 (hands on hips) and 1938 at Bethel College (hands in dresscoat pockets).














Yesterday was Dad's birthdate. I tried to get a photo posted, but had some trouble getting it cropped and had to learn some things about photoshop elements. Maybe i will add some more soon. (On my other blog i can change the date and time of posting so late postings for birthdays and anniversaries are no problem, you never have to be late again.)