Armenian Relatives

Tommy Mushegain and John Mooshegian (these are their correct spellings...they each spell their names differently even though they each have the same ancestor...this practice is called "creative spelling") reminiscing about old times. These guys know all the stories! Then we have Betty standing behind the couch in one picture..notice how the wall of the living room opens out onto Newport (or is it Balboa?) Bay.

OK...Here's how it goes, I think:

Sarbeck Mushegian (born 1875 in Karakala, Armenia/Russia) had 2 kids with his wife Arusiak Egigian: Levin and Mary.

Levin had 4 children. They were all at the re-union but I did not really understand it all! If I had to do it over, I would have taken a picture of all of Levin's 4 kids together! They are:
~Tommy
~Richard
~Patty
~Nancy

Mary had 5 children with her husband Arshak Amerkhanian. Of them, Betty Amerkhanian Hulihan is the only one alive. She is 84.
These are the 5 kids, then:
~Kachi
~Ruben
~Ruth
~Lynn
~Betty

I, Joan, wife of John (son of Betty) met all these folks at one time or another...even Mary herself (Xmas of 1976)who was an excellent cook! She cooked, in her later years, for rich Hollywoood people (movie stars?)
Tommy (the guy on the left) is a real sweetheart..gave John a big long hug and many kisses when he saw John at the re-union Saturday.

John Mushegian's dad is Ardash Mushegain (they spell it both ways..ian and ... ain and some of the folks spell it Mooshegian...(these are all the same family)
Now who is Ardash? Ardash is the son of Ovhannes
Ardash's dad is Sarbecks' brother.

OK..let's go back to their dad. Here is where it gets really interesting!

Musheg Gabrillof is the patriarch of this family. The ian at the end of the Armenian names means
family of So Musheg's kids (even though Musheg's last name was Gabrillof) are all Mushegian meaning ..family of Mushegian...!

So Musheg had 4 boys:
~Ovhannes (the oldest)
~Mugurditch
~Bakra
~Sarbeck (the great grandpa of John P. Hulihan and the great great grandpa of John P. Hulihan's kids)

Musheg means "Mouse" in Persian.

Before!

Long hair. Gotta go...sick of wearing a ponytail...can't really wear it down like this...

After !

Went to Supercuts this morning to get rid of my long hair. This style is called a "bob". Cool on the neck. 14.50 for the cut, 8.00 for the styling...hairspray, blowdryer, circular brush. $3.50 tip.

Wood Fired Pizza

While we were in San Diego at the beginning of the week, we decided to splurge and go to a restaurant specilaizinf in wood fired pizzas. Here we are with our chocies: Thai Chicken Pizza (had peanut sauce in place of the tomato sauce) Kelsy gave me all the chicken from her pieces. John odered BBQ chicken. The crust was great, of course...very thin on the bottom, and a nice chewy crispy on the outside rim.

So that was our very first wood fired pizza. Very wonderful.

Isaiah turns 1 !

Ah..another party for another 1 year old. Today, May 31st. This time..Isaiah! here is a picture of me and Isaiah, a picture of Tommy and his son Isaiah and his favorite present...a crocodile xylophone from Aunt Kelsy....and a cream puff picture (that's Christine, his mommy helping him blow out the candle).

Shayla turns 1 !

We had a big birthday bash on May 24...in Fillmore, CA at the Nelson house. Lots of people were there! I picked 3 of the cutest pictures I shot, to share with you....One is of Shayla in her party clothes, one is of Larissa and Shayla and Heather (Larissa's friend from way back.)And I had to include the cream puff picture.
I am very thrilled that the Hulihan tradition of having cream puffs for the first birthday is being carried on into the next generation.

Cookie''s Sheared!

The weather is hot here now, so we took Cookie down to Pet Smart to get sheared last Monday. It was a full 4 hour job! I loved the hot pink bandana her groomer put on her. Here are her before and after pictures.

Mother's Day May 11

Thnak you to sweet Kelsy, our only resident child. She showered me with gifts, wall banners, and chocolate treats. Not pictured were 2 gorgeous and lavishly expensive chocolate bars. Thanks so much Kelsy. Thanks to all my children: They sent me cards and called and it was great!

The Artist

This is Kelsy...I wish she would finish this sky mural! She needs more paint! We have to wait until paint goes on sale at Michael's. She is so talented.

Visit

Tommy and family came by Friday on their way to Vegas. Christine will be running in a 5 K marathon there Saturday.

DVDs for my Birthday

Wednesday, we were watching random TV and found a movie:"Solomon". What passion! Wow! I had seen a lot of biblical movies in my day and this was tops. Later in the day, John told me he ordered the movie along with 3 others in a boxed set...for my birthday (which was April 22...he had already given me a hammock for a present, so this was a nice surprise.) The movies arrived (from amazon.com company, thanks to Larissa getting me a Prime membership) 2 days later! So this post is just to say how excited I am to see these movies.

David and Amber's Visit

David and Amber are celebrating their one year anniversary and so they made a trip to San Diego and stopped here on the way down and on the way back.

While here, we pulled out a game John got at the swap meet about 6 months ago..called Abalone. It was great! Amber is quite a strategist! We et them take the game home, but have decided to get one for ourselves. More later! We are picking up Kelsy at the airport.

Molly and Charlotte

Welcome Little Charlotte!

Shayla

I took this picture of our cute granddaughter Shayla on February 18, when she and her mommy were visiting. She is in the cutest stage now...creeping and cuddling ...laughing and babbling....She is 9 months old and the first child of our daughter Larissa and her husband Jon (Nelson). They live in Fillmore, California. She's a vegetarian baby so far...her mom has been a vegetarian since 7th grade. Her dad loves meat and grilling it outdoors. We shall see what develops. Larissa is such a good mommy. There is a picture here of Larissa introducing Shayla to her great grandpa (John Robert Hulihan) for the first time.

Dad starts to tell a story

This was one of the dozen best things I did on my vacation to Stevens Point last October! Unbeknownst to my dad, as I sat in the backseat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with my tiny digital camera, I put it on video recording mode. It could only stay in this mode for a few seconds, so we only get the first part of the story. Sandy is sitting next to me in the back. And my mom is sitting on the passenger side up front. They can't be seen in this video and they were quietly listening to my dad, so you do not hear their voices.

The second part of the story is that my dad and his little brother Wayne (Dad used the name Dennis, but her meant Wayne)ended up waiting and waiting and waiting for Uncle Pete to come home from church so he could drive them into town. Uncle Pete never showed up and so they had to make a move. My dad, being the older of the 2, decided they would walk home. We are talking 11 miles, maybe more...this is from the south-east side Stockton to the north-west side of Stevens Point. I would love to clock it.
And so they did walk! I imagine they got home, very unaware of their fatigue, and grabbed those 2 dimes from the kitchen table and then walked-no ...ran... to the movie theater downtown. Uncle Pete never said anything about the incident, but my dad thinks he stopped at the tavern on the way home from church and simply forgot about his task to drive the boys back to Stevens Point. In this little video, I love my dad's voice and accent...and the tree-lined highway (we were on our way to the Rudolph Cheese Factory that day.)

Sweetness and Light

Here is a recent photo, taken February 2008, of our daughter Kelsy Renee. I am currently so happy she is living at home now after being gone for 2 and 1/2 years. You see, she left home about a week after she turned 16...to live in Utah with her older sister Amy and Amy's husband Fox. Kelsy enrolled in a brand new charter school up there...a high school that guarantees you will also have an associate degree by the time you have earned your high school diploma. The school had just opened its doors and we are grateful that Fox discovered it. Now there is a very long waiting list to get in. It is called Utah County Academy of Science....or UCAS for short.
Kelsy got very adept at riding the city bus and also showed tendencies for loving to walk outrageous distances after a hard day of school and work (she worked at Sonic, a fast food place..she was a car-hop on roller skates.)

After graduation, she attended University of Utah as an art major. After completing one semester (living in a dorm for a while and then living off campus in Salt Lake City), she moved home here to Victorville on what I like to call a creativity sabbatical. Since home, she has just been a wonderful presence of "sweetness and light" here. The dogs are getting much more attention and this old house doesn't seem so empty anymore. We have fun trying new things together. I am helping her fine tune her driving skills so she can take her driver's test. When I introduced her to my dabbling in raw food lifestyle, she eagerly read many of the books and even purchase a food dehydrator. She made some very tasty vegetable "crackers"..and we now process our raw nuts and sunflower seeds with it, soaking them overnight to get the enzyme inhibitors off and then drying them back to a state of crunchiness in the dehydrator.

Kelsy is adventurous, fun, creative, loving, kind to animals, artistic, disciplined, etc..etc...!!!! So glad to have her home for a while! Our baby!