Merry Christmas from Idaho

Merry Christmas to everyone.

not a cousing, but an "Ant"

Hello nieces and nephews...so far I am the only one of the "older" generation to add to the blog. We met Ken and Ione for lunch today and she told me she is not a cousin so hasn't added anything! So am I infringing on a select group? Love reading all the info, so hope it is o.k.
Pete is getting everything together to go to the Houston area to help with clean up after the hurricanes. There are four people from our church going leaving after the second service tomorrow. They had hoped to get more but with all the "stuff" on the list people are asked to bring, it will be a full car as it is. It will be a two day trip down, work for three days and drive back another two days. I would like to go along, but I'm afraid my back wouldn't hold up too well..just hope his doesn't give out on him.
We have our fall garden clean up done. I divided my iris and took the extras to church to plant there. In the process of digging, we unearthed big bunches of tulip bulbs that were grown together and needed dividing. We did that and replanted what there was room for and brought the rest home. I planted those today...51 of them! Next spring will be beautiful in they are productive.
David your story of digging the pit for the outhouse reminds me of one of Dan's tales from the Army. While he was in Korea I believe it was, the unit was marched out into the desert to fill sandbags, but once they got out there, no one had bags! So they dug trenches instead. Dan didn't think too much of the intelligence in the military. I may have screwed up that story...if so, Dan can correct it.
all for now
Aunt Polly

Greetings From Lexington Ky.

Hi everyone!this is Becky Griebel daughter to Dorothy(#6 0f 11).Writing this from Lexington Ky.Horse capital of the world.Lived here for 25 years or so My husband is Francis and he works for Link-Belt Construction Equipment Co.He Designs Cranes.Iam a homemaker. And manage the book work on the 4plex Apts. own. WE have one Daughter Megan,who we adopted from China.In 1998.She is 12 years old now and is in 7th grade . What a wonderful thing it was to go to China to get her.Once and a life time trip.Altho we hope to go back some day so she can see Nanning China again where she is from. My Brothers are Steve Lindner he lives in Ankeny Iowa.Duane, he lives in SAn Ramon CA. And Curt,he lives in Eagle River AK. AND MY DAD AND Audrey live in Fort Dodge IA. do not know to much else here . THANKS DAN FOR STARTING THIS Blog I have really enjoyed reading it and seeing what all the Cousins are doing these days .Take Care Everyone Becky

Back from the Big Easy

I just spent this past weekend at the national conference for Women Chefs and Restauranteurs, which was a blast. New Orleans is still a far cry from the city as I found it seven years ago, but it does seem to be coming along. The people are just different there, they seem to be more vibrant and often rather eccentric. I noticed even that the men who made cat calls were somewhat different, not yelling, but rather greeting me with a kind word or two.

The food there was absolutely wonderful, but what else would you expect for a group of such talented individuals? We dined out Saturday night, and then were fed in the hotel by many top-notch chefs for the remainder of the conference. I must mention also that the wine flowed freely, and not the cheap stuff either. Women do these things right.

Many of the attendees were famous faces like Elizabeth Faulkner, Barbara Lynch, Leah Chase and Gale Gand, but at meals and sessions they were completely casual and extremely personable. I've never met so many people in just over two days, and now just have to make notes and remember them all.

Hi all,

Enjoyed reading all of the posts to date - what a great idea.

I'm Rich (still Richard to my Mom) Licht, 2nd son of Bob and Esther. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota with wife Lori and our 11-year-old son Adam. Our first-born, Kristen, is a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, majoring in marketing. Our son John is a freshman at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. We think he's majoring in baseball and fun, at least for the first year anyway.

Lori and I are both accountants. We met when we both worked for Arthur Andersen & Co. We both left AA&Co. to work in industry, long before that venerable firm's sad demise. I am now a corporate reporting accountant for Graco (not the baby equipment company), which manufactures paint sprayers, industrial pumps and lubrication equipment. Lori has worked for the last 25 years for Jacobs Management Co, a holding company for the business interests of a wealthy entrepreneur by the name of Irwin Jacobs. Their holdings include Genmar, a boat manufacturer, and Watkins Products.

From John Licht

Hi All! This is John Licht, youngest son of Bob, brother to Ken, Rich and Karen.

From Karen...again...here are my kids...

From Karen in Des Moines

• Hi to all!
  
  This is from Karen Reding, daughter to Bob (#2 of 11), writing from Des Moines, Iowa.
  
  Thanks to whoever established this blog. My husband's family has a website on "Myfamily.com" which has been a wonderful way for us to stay in touch with his brothers & sisters (all 12 of them!). I just love the Internet and how it has opened doors to staying in touch with those who are far apart. My Mom was here at Christmas and commented how much we use our computer! She has given us strict instructions not to purhase a computer for her, however!
  
  A side note, please let me know where to send my brothers' e-mail addresses. I know they would be interested in joining in on the blog.
  
  I live in Urbandale and have 3 children. Jenna is 16, Nathan is 13 and Ben is 10. My husband, Tony, works as an IT Manager at The Principal Financial Group and for the past 2 years I have been doing some part-time bookkeeping for two small law firms. Tony and I met at The Principal in 1988 and were married in 1990. I continued to work there until 1997 when we had Jenna and Nathan at two different day cares and neither of them had openings for the baby on the way. I was home full time until about 4 years ago when I found some part time bookkeeping work.
  
  I have been thinking about what I can remember growing up being a Licht. Here are a few things that come to mind:

• The cookie jar at Grandma Licht's, mostly, perfectly round sugar cookies.
• The white propane tank on Grandma & Grandpa's farm, climbing on it.
• Playing in the corn cribs on Grandma & Grandpa's farm.
• Climbing a plum tree on G & G's farm and falling out of it. The grass underneath was so long and soft, it felt like falling on a pillow!
• Crossing the field at G & G's with cousins and going to the river to skip rocks.
• When Grandma stayed with us at Christmas when my Mom's Mom passed away and Mom was gone for the funeral in California. Grandma Licht curled my hair all wrong!
• Going to Chicago to visit the Heinitz's in their BIG house! Riding the "el" to downtown Chicago. What a thrill! Seeing the swimming pool where Jackie and Jan were life guards (I think!)...I thought it was really cool.
• Going to New Ulm to visit Gordon and Betty and family and for a German festival.
• Reunions in Dubuque with the aunts, uncles and some cousins.

My Mom is doing well. Osteoporosis has made her quite bent over and frail but she gets around amazingly well. She had an eye-lid lift last May in Des Moines and stayed with us for the week of the surgery. Spring is such a busy time of year for us, she was ready to go home after watching us run in circles around her! She has some good friends in Fort Dodge who check in on her regularly and pick her up for lunch or coffee now and then. She always goes to church on Saturday nights and every week, has supper with 2 friends after the church service.

Once again, this blog is wonderful. I'll look forward to new posts!

Sincerely,

Karen

Thanks! - and a couple suggestions...

Hi everyone,

This is Dan in Frankfurt.

Thanks for stopping by and contributing. I hope more do. We've all known that this family has spread out all over. I doubt many of us know where most of the others live, what they're doing, and so forth. Maybe this will help change that a bit by being a place you can easily refer back to if you want to look someone up.

I'm happy that so many have contributed so far, and hopefully more will. We'll keep sending out invitations to whatever email addresses we discover. If you know of anybody we should invite, just mail me and I'll put them on the list to invite.

A couple suggestions. First, start out your post with your name and location, at least for your first post. If you don't, sometimes it takes a bit of reading before you can figure out who the author is.

Second, post a picture. You can add one to your profile like Christy did, or you can paste one into your post like so...

This is, from left to right, Aoife, Emily, and Siobhan at a wildlife park in Dublin, Ireland. Aoife was fascinated by the peacock - and terrified once when she got too close and it turned on her to chase her down! (It only ran a couple feet towards her before going back to it's business.)

Thanks again for contibuting!

Dan

Hi everyone!

Hello fellow bloggers! It looks like I'm a little late getting on this. Since I really only know a few of you out there, here it goes...

I'm Christy, Bruce and Nanette's older (and cooler!) daughter, granddaughter of Marcella and Shorty. I graduated from Carolina in 2004, married Patrick "PJ" Quirk the following year and currently reside in Durham, NC. I know Durham, yikes, thats where that other school is, but outside their tiny little campus the city is actually not too bad. I still haven't strayed too far from Chapel Hill though, since I'm employed as a sous chef at the Weathervane restaurant, inside A Southern Season. If you're not familiar with the place, check it out online and do your holiday shopping there! Anyhow, I think that's all the major info for me, I'll check in with you guys later!

Julie & Kathy...what a great idea for your mom's 90th birthday! It is something she can listen to over and over again. i can never think of clever things to "remember" until the sisters get together and start reminiscing. Then we all get on our "Iowa" voices that Dan referred to previously. Thanks for giving us a "heads up" early on .
Polly/Inez

Florence's 90th birthday

Hi, everyone,

Laura (my youngest) and I were in Minnesota for a college tour at St. Olaf and stayed with Kathy and Chuck for a nice visit last week. During this time, Kathy and I started talking about our mom's (Florence's) upcoming birthday: she'll be 90 on March 7.

We want to mark the occasion in some way; but we also want to be sensitive to her health issues. In other words, we want the day to be special but we don't want to wear her out.

Given those constraints, and given that we'd like to include everyone in the celebration, we came up with this idea: Gather thoughts/memories/wishes for Florence on tape and then present the tapes to her on her birthday.

We'd need the help of some of the cousins. Kathy and I would purchase a few hand-held tape recorders and send them to well-placed cousins (well-placed geographically in relation to Florence's sibs). The cousins could then record the thoughts etc of aunts/uncles/moms/dads--and their own, if they wanted--to share with Florence. Then you all could send the tapes (and recorders) back to Kathy and/or me, and we'd give the tapes to her.

We thought that by starting this project now, we could perhaps ask you to undertake some of the recording during Thanksgiving and/or Christmas gatherings.

What do you think? Would anyone be up for this? Let us know, either in this blog or via e-mail. You can contact me at jschorfheide@att.net.

Thanks!

Greets from Idaho

Hello Everyone from Dave Nell:

This blogging should prove interesting. I do not own a cell phone and still have a dial-up connection to the INTERNET.

Life is nice and slow out here in Idaho. The only real problem is getting up at 4:30 in the morning to ride a bus 55 miles out into the desert for work. Also being single keeps things calm.

The one exception is when I went on vacation the week of August 11th. I helped Horse Creek Outfitters in Challis, Idaho set-up their back country camp at Square Top Mountain in the Salmon National Forest. I learned a lot about catching and saddling horses and mules and setting up canvas tents. We had wolves howling outside the camp one morning and rode along the edge of a small forest fire on Monday and Tuesday. On Thursday, we rode close enough to the fire that we were in thick smoke, had trees falling around us, and heard some trees near us catch fire and burst into flames.

The only other thing that I found interesting was helping to dig a five foot deep hole for the outhouse. Out where I work, it would of taken four forms, three reviews, and a month of close supervision to get the hole dug. Back at Square Top Mountain, the three of us picked a nice location near the camp and started digging.

Take care everyone.

the "Youngest Licht Girl"

Hello to the younger generation! Actually, I am only six years older than Kathy and Steve Lindner so I consider myself betwixt and between.
I have tried to resurrect the "Round Robin" letter which I started when I graduated from college over some 40 years ago. But it seems to get sidetracked amongst the contributors, so for those of us online, maybe this will keep us connected somewhat.
I have read the blog postings with great interest and hope to hear from more as the word spreads throughout the family.
Our life is rather mundane since we are "retired". I work two days a week at our church as well as volunteer at the local library one day a week. I'm also a member of a chapter of the RedHat Society but that is struggling to survive but for those of us who still come, it is fun. I went online to find a chapter when we moved to Roscoe as I wanted to belong to other groups besides church friends. The Redhatters don't contribute anything to society...just have fun! I had to struggle with that concept, but am o.k. with it now and find the night out beneficial.
Pete is taking a vacancy at a little church in Sharon, WI which is about a 1/2 hr drive from here. He takes the service on alternate Sundays and will be teaching the Confirmation class on Wednesday nights. I think he is hoping kids that age have changed since the last time he taught about 20 years ago!...patience, patience!
We both keep busy with our house and yard but also enjoy time out for trips, etc.
Mike and Angela, Eric and Lauren live a little over an hour away so we see them more often than when we lived in Wausau. We hope to stay in touch with Jessica and Trevor as time progresses.
Posting on the blog is new to me so hope I did everything right!
Pete and Polly

Greetings from Julie in Northern VA

Hello, everyone,

This is Julie Schorfheide, Florence's youngest child and younger sister to Kathy Piehl in Mankato, MN, and Doug Kracke in Tempe, AZ.

A quick update on me: My family and I live in the DC area--not too far from Mark and Liz, but you'd never know it, since we rarely see each other. My husband, Jim, and I have three children: Christine (26) is at Yale, working on a PhD in art history; Jeffrey (21), in Madison, WI, has "taken some time off" from school (U of WI) and has found out just how hard it is to earn a living at minimum-wage-and-lower jobs. He's planning on returning to his studies during semester #2 of the 2008-09 school year. When he returns to school, parental support will kick in again. THis is a huge incentive. Laura (17) will be starting her senior year in high school and has focused her efforts on selecting colleges to which she will soon apply. We (she and I) recently completed a 10-day swing through the Midwest to visit Indiana University, then head to St. Louis (in-law visit), then to Madison (Jeffrey visit), to Chicago (Florence visit and Northwestern tour), then to Delaware, OH, for a tour of Ohio Wesleyan. On Monday we fly to Minneapolis for a combined visit to Kathy and Chuck and a tour of St. Olaf. Not many kids in Northern Virginia lookivto the Midwest for schools, as far as we can tell. Laura does not believe that the sun rises and sets on Virginia schools, though her parents wish she'd consider them more seriously because it would mean a lot less tuition $$ flying out the door.

I've been working as managing editor of an association magazine in DC since May 2007, and I returned to school at George Washington University last fall to work on a master's degree in publishing. Between 2.5+ hours of commuting every day, the higher demands of the new job, course work, and trying to maintain a bit of freelancing I still do for the University of Missouri Press, my time has been pretty much taken up. Which explains why I sent out no Christmas cards last year and why Laura and Jim have become rather adept at feeding themselves in the evenings.

Now, regarding "how my mother did ... "--let me add to the "cut up chickens" thread. Mom fixed fried chicken every Wednesday night. She would buy whole fryers at the store and cut them up in the sink. Chicken bones cracked and popped as the fryer was dismembered into "parts" that had no final resemblance to living fowl. I remember searching for bits of free-floating white meat, unattached to any bones at all, and shunning the other oddly shaped pieces. I also remember the first time I saw fried chicken at a friend's house and could identify pieces like wings, legs, and so on. It was a revelation. I'm sure the horror of my mom's fried chicken has been amplified by memory and passage of time--but to this day I, like Jan, buy boneless chicken breasts.

Julie

I'm still laughing!

Dear Cousins (and their parents)

I remember a time when we were living in the city of Chicago... a neighbor, who was Jewish, couldn't find a rabbi to bless the chicken that was on tv as a prop that morning, gave the chicken to my parents. So, with a very dull axe, my dad (Ken)took the chicken to the alley, brutally chopped and chopped and chopped until the chicken probably died of a heart attack. Then, took the chicken into the house so my mom (Ione) could clean the chicken and tell my sister Jackie and I about all the body parts of the chicken. I still buy boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

I can also relate to having a pastor as a father and the order of service. Of course, dad usually preached somewhere else, but when he did preach at our church, I remember sitting as close to the front as possible with mom and siblings and trying very hard to make dad laugh during the sermon.

We just had a family reunion, Jackie (oldest sibling) from Cincinnati who works for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati,

John and Ruth (Oakland CA) john is the principal, Ruth teaches 4th grade at Zion Lutheran School, they have been there for 25 years or so. Two of their daughters were there: Rachel and Sarah, Beth works on a cruise ship and couldn't get off work -how sad to work on a cruise ship...

Mark and Liz (Springfield VA) Mark is a CPA, works out of his basement. Liz does a lot of volunteer work and raises their two girls Natalie (9th grade) and Michelle (7th grade or 8th grade).

I teach at COncordia University in Wisconsin. My daughter Rebecca will be a senior this year and hoping to attend the Naval Academy or another college that has a NROTC program - Iowa State is on her list of colleges... maybe all the younger cousins could get an apartment together!
My other daughter CHristina will be a sophomore this year and is at a speciality arts school with a major in orchestral music... she still needs to take all the regular stuff (math, science, etc.) but has an emphasis in music.

Great to hear from all of you! Wonderful to hear what you have to say!

From Deutschland

Hi, everyone. Dan Peterson here. I suppose it's about time I post something.
I'm the middle of three boys from Inez (11 of 11) and Wendell. My wife Siobhan and I are living in Frankfurt, Germany with our two daughters, Aoife and Emily. Aoife will be three at the end of the month, and Emily, who was born here in Frankfurt, is 18 months old today.
I'm working in the IT security department of the European Central Bank, albeit just as a contractor. Some people wait months for a job openning there, but I fell into it by plain dumb luck.
Siobhan, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, is raising the two girls and working on setting up a retail childrens products website here in Germany. German stores don't have much in the way of new innovative products (and not-so-inovative things like simple sippy-cups that don't spill!), so we're hoping her store takes off. The website isn't posted yet, but the URL will be http://www.comfykids.eu/, if you want to have a look. Hopefully it'll be up by the end of next week.
We're really enjoying our time in Frankfurt, although there are some inconveniences like everything being closed on Sundays. Life is calmer. It's much less hectic and aggravating, at least compared to Chicago city life. My daily commute is a whole whopping 5 minutes by bike. Restaurants and such are plentiful, but we don't have too many opportunities for going out. That will change as the girls get bigger.
One of the really nice things about Frankfurt are the excellent public swimming pools. They have a beach and wave-pool section, waterslides, outdoor and indoor parts, and really warm kiddy pools. The girls love it and can spend the whole day there.
We've had some opportunities for travel. Siobhan and the girls frequently go to Dublin, where they'll stay for a couple weeks at a time at Siobhan's parents house. We've also been able to visit friends in London, and take weekend trips to towns like Marburg, Bad Ems, and Baden Baden. We're hoping to make bigger trips to Rome, Greece, and other warmer areas.
Here's one of our weird mom-things: You can tell whenever someone from Iowa is calling on the phone because my mom's voice immediately changes. She becomes louder, more nasally, and says "Oh, Yah!" every other sentence. Maybe some of you have noticed that too, except for those who are still in Iowa (because, that would be your normal voice!).

Hi everyone!
Barb here (Marcella and Shorty's). Bruce and I live in Johnston, IA. (Not brother Bruce, I married a Bruce). We have 2 kids. This will be Brad's 2nd year at Iowa State. Abbey will be a Senior in High School. When we talked about starting a blog, we joked that we could all contribute
something like, "How my mother...." then fill in the blank. Well, I'll go with "how my parents.......".
I remember how my parents used to "clean chickens". Mom would swing the poor, tasty thing by it's neck (softball pitch style) then hand it to dad to put it on the chopping block. The chicken's nerves would usually kick in and it would run around the yard, with no head. Who needs X-Box?
Hope that inspires ya' all to join in!

It would be great to hear from all of you that have accepted the invitation, or perhaps you have sent something to the blog and I am not able to read it. Tell the rest of the family what you are doing, which Licht you belong to, etc....

Would be great now to hear from everyone that has signed on to the blog... what are you doing? which Licht do you belong to? etc....

Hi cousins!

thanks to Dan Peterson (Pete and Inez) for doing this. Hopefully we can get someone from each of the 11 kids involved to keep us all up to date on our generation of the Licht family.

This is AWESOME! Thanks Dan

Welcome

We're starting this blog so that any Licht extended family members can post information about where they live and what they're doing. Add anything you like that may be of interest to other family members.