January weather.

My my my, what a gloomy day! Rainy and cold and dark!

My father-in-law is driving home through all of that, and I hope he's having a safe trip. Come to think of it, he may be home by now, or close to it, if the weather cooperated. He was here for five days and he and Todd did a ton of kayak fishing and hanging out together. It was a really nice visit.

In cleaning out my study, I found an album of pictures from Todd's family that I must have borrowed from my mother-in-law years ago (at least three moves ago, I'm thinking) and inexplicably never returned. I never scanned and saved any of the photos, either--I don't know what I was thinking. So I did that last evening so my FIL could take it back home where it belongs today.

I have seen very few photos from my FIL's side of the family--I'm not sure where they've all scattered to, but there was a nice big 8x10 in the album that definitely caught my eye:

This is the Ferrante family in 1947. Todd's great-grandparents are in the middle, surrounded by their eight children and some of the children's spouses, and the grandchildren that had come along by that time. I'm sure there were more later on.

Todd's grandpap is the second man from the left, and Todd's dad is the baby sitting on Todd's grandma's lap way over on the right.

I'm amazed they got all those kids to stand and sit so nicely, knowing firsthand how those large family group photos usually proceed. Maybe kids were better behaved back then!

It looks like Todd's great-grandparents did pretty well for themselves and their family, for a couple of Italian immigrants who came here, I'm sure, with very little. I'm always fascinated with other people's dressed-up, stylish-looking ancestors, because most of mine were Mennonites who, even if they were dressed nicely for a photographed occasion, certainly weren't dressed in the fashion of the day.

In other news, my study remains a disaster as I sit and stare at piles of things to be sorted, and heave a sigh, and move into another, tidier room for a few hours. It's crazy to have so many uncompleted projects just sitting around. Mostly pages that need to go into albums, and albums that don't have room for any more pages. Funny how that works.

I think I'll get started on some supper so I don't have to sit here and look at them anymore!