The Archives - December 2005

Merry Christmas from the Stembridges!
Click to download our PDF Christmas card (470K)

Weather Alert: We're standing by for 1-2" of snow today (Christmas Eve) and overnight. Looks like it's going to be a WHITE CHRISTMAS!!

Well, it missed us completely. Areas about 1 hour East of us got 1-2", though. We still had a great Christmas!

We recently returned from our annual trip to the Promised Land (Georgia), and had great visits with family and friends. One of the highlights was performing a small 'concert' at the retirement home where my 96 year old grandmother lives:

What made this especially memorable was that Chad was playing a violin that Granny had rescued from my Great-grandmother's estate after she passed back in the 1970s. The violin still had cat-gut strings on it, but was in very poor shape. Well, Chad saved his money and asked if he could have it restored to have for his own, to which I agreed. He played it at the concert so Granny finally got to hear it!

The violin is a copy of a Stainer (a very famous German violin maker from the 1700s). We had it appraised at two different shops, and both agreed that it was a copy (there goes my instant retirement), but that it was also still quite old - mid-to-late 1800s is where they placed the manufacture date, based on the construction technique and finish.

The body of the violin is much deeper and narrower than modern violins, giving it a bit of a "boxy" sound - much like what you would think of from a fiddle. Chad loves it!

Another bit of fun my brothers and I had was driving out to Whitehead Road Elementary School where we all attended at some point while living in Athens, GA. The kids and spouses had a fun time playing on the playground (okay, we did too).

It was a great trip. A few days after we returned home, this is what we got:

We've had three more snows since, totaling around 5" so far.

Update: we're up to around 10-12" total for the winter so far. Most of it's blown away into large drifts...

Crazy Cat

You've heard of being driven up the wall? How 'bout this?

Yep, we have some whacky cats!