Tobin Family Website

School is now back in session and the kids are getting back into the routine of early to bed,  early to rise.  Delaney has adapted quite well, but Ben continues to struggle with the concept.  Delaney is like me, in that she can fall asleep almost immediately after her head touches the pillow.  Ben, on the other hand, takes after Karen and can stare at the ceiling for hours while laying in bed….even if he is dog tired.  I have tried to help him by suggesting things like sleeping on his stomach, but he just can’t seem to find a way to quickly fall asleep.

The kids like their new teachers this year, especially Delaney.  Ben got in trouble on Thursday when he stayed outside too long for recess.  His class was only allowed to be out for about 5 minutes, and he says that he ended up staying out for about 30 minutes (with kids from other classes).  When he finally realized that his class had long since gone inside, he returned to his room and got a warning from the teacher.  We were not happy that the teacher failed to go look for him or send anyone out to get him when she noticed him missing!  For all she knew, he could have run off or been abducted from the playground. 

Delaney was asked by her teacher if we had anyone famous in the family, to which she replied “My Uncle Eric is a famous drawer!”.  As a result, on Monday, she gets to bring in some pictures of Eric and his paintaings to show the class.  I printed some pictures from the gallery on this website, to include one that I took of Eric painting on top of Mount Mansfield.  I also printed one of Delaney and Ben with Eric when we were home for my parents 50th wedding anniverary in February.  She is excited to have something to show and tell, especially since she loves art so much and wants to be an artist like her Uncle Eric. 

Karen has been busy at home, finally able to catch up on some rest and some other activities around the house now that the kids are back in school.  She will be substitute teaching again this year, but demand is low in the first few weeks.  We have been told there is a shortage of subs in the system, so we expect she will be busy soon enough! 

I have been really busy in my spare time over at www.nhlpens.com, setting up my new hockey blog ahead of the start of the season on 5 Oct 07.  I have been working hard on getting all of the features in place, and have been putting up an article about every other day as well.  There has been plenty of pre-season news and information to get out and I want to build up a bit of a following before the season gets started.  So far, it has been pretty successful.  Since I started collecting some stats on 2 Sep, I have had 146 unique vistors (not including myself) that have viewed the website 600 times….and it is growing daily.  I have started to get a couple of people posting comments against my articles and posting in the discussion forums as well.  Hopefully it takes off and I can get a few advertising dollars out of it to cover my minor costs and time.  Regardless, as many of you know, I love hockey…..and I love playing around with websites, so it is a good, creative outlet for me. 

I also set up another TiVo related blog (www.tivoville.com), but have spent almost no time working on it since I set it up 2 weeks ago.  My focus has been the hockey site. 

I am in town for a couple of weeks, but will be heading back to San Diego at the end of the month.  Time seems to be whizzing by.  My time in the military is quickly drawing to an end….I can retire in 25 months.  I really need to start thinking about what I want to do when I grow up! 

While in Vermont I obtained a Photo Album that belonged to my Great Great Grandmother Susan (Simmons) Brandstrup.  It had been passed down to my mother through her Grandmother Mary Kirstine (Brandstrup) Nathan.  The photo album, tattered with wear, contains over 100 vintage photographs taken in the 1800s and early 1900s.  Most of the photos are unmarked, so we do not know who they are.  However, given that they belonged to Susan (Simmons) Brandstrup, I assume that many of the individuals are Brandstrup or Simmons ancestry. 

I just completed a day long effort of removing the photos from the album and scanning them into the computer for preservation and display.  If the photos had any markings on the back, which many did, I scanned that in as well and merged the files into one image.  The photos were taken at a variety of places with Denmark, England, and the USA being the predominant locations.  This fits with the Brandstrups (Danish) and Simmons (Ireland/England?) and their immigrated descendants.  I have been amazed looking at all of these old photographs and wish that I knew who they were so that I could match them to the names in my Genealogy files.

I have sent an e-mail to a couple of Brandstrup family Genealogists in Denmark to see if they may be of any assistance in identifying any of the images.  To help out, I have created an online photo album containing all 101 of the images so that they can easily view the photos and correspond with me if they have any idea who some o fthe photos may be.  Some photos have hints on the back by possibly listing a first name.   I am hoping that I may get lucky with a longshot and get some help from Denmark in identifying some of the photos.  If you would like to view the photos, click on the picture below to view the album: