And the Search is Over!!

Oh man, I am so thrilled you guys!

After our loss of the name Naomi I have been searching and searching baby girl names trying to find one that John and I could both agree one. That was nearly impossible. I like unique; he likes traditional. I like modern; he likes Biblical. Oh man, it was rough. We went through tons of names; I would come up with a list and he "could deal with" about three out of twenty. So back to the drawing board I'd go. There was one name I kept putting on there hoping he would change his mind, but each time the response I got was- "eh maybe I could deal with it". But I'd slip it on the list the next time hoping for a different reaction....the reaction was the same because I don't think he ever actually remembered it from the list before haha.

Tonight John mentioned our top three picks to the boys and tried to get some more opinions on them. The boys didn't like any of them, which makes John less excited about them, and in all honesty I had my own issues with each of them anyway. Then I did it; I mentioned that one name again and John said, "hmmm...what about _________" to the boys and they approved! With the guys approval behind us, and John's "yeah, I actually like that" response, we FINALLY have a baby girl name winner!

Our top three picks that are not getting picked were:
Nova
Delaney
and
Darla

I love the idea of using Nova for reasons I've mentioned before; however, I want my baby to place their own stamp on a name, to make it their own, and every time I hear or read the name Nova I picture my great grandma. And I don't want that to change.

Delaney I still think is pretty, but it's just not meant to be our little girl (if baby is a girl....which I'm 98% sure she is). John wasn't thrilled about it but it was one of the least hated on the lists, John's friends crossed it off immediately (not that their opinion matters to me, but it does to him), and even my best friend had that "it's nice...." response which is never good haha. It just wasn't meant to be.

and lastly, Darla....I think this is the cutest name for a little girl, but that's just it- a little girl. It's one of those names that I couldn't picture as a woman's name in her 30's or so. For a little girl- darling! For a woman...I'm just not sure it grows up well.

So if anyone is looking for girl names, there's a couple ideas! Sorry if my explanations ruined them for anyone!

When we find out for sure what gender our little lamb is (hopefully on the 3rd, if not then then in June), I'll announce our names.

I was so excited about our boys name we've picked that I didn't think we could find a girls name to match my excitement, but we did!!

*Maybe if you're super curious and want to ask me privately about our names I'll tell you ;) I just don't want it publicly listed on this blog yet :)*

Now you guys don't have to hear about my rants during this stressful search! Aren't you excited now too?? haha

Family Secrets

I love ancestry stuff. Like, I lose hours looking up my ancestry and studying ancestry....it's kind of a weird hobby I have. And tonight this got sparked again by a conversation with my mom.

There are so many dark secrets once you start looking into family histories. I don't get very far with my own because of them. I mean, we're talking hundreds of years with affairs, pregnancies out of wedlock, people being exiled, others being murdered, some coming to Ellis Island, others completely denying their heritage (yes, all of these are a part of my family history at some point along the way)....family acestry is dirty stuff. I love it. But it gets hard to track a family line when there are so many sidetracks.

I love figuring out who I am, where I come from, why I look the way I do, why I have certain characteristics that I do and who I get them from....I'm seriously fascinated.

I can't remember how the conversation with my mom started exactly, but I found out some information that I didn't know before. I don't get far in my searches, but I never really even tried looking into my mom's father's side of the family. I never knew him, and no one has much to say about him, so I never really thought I'd get anywhere if I tried to look. But tonight I was told names of my great grandparents on my mom's dad's side (well, I got my mom's grandpa's name and the maiden name of her grandma)....names get you somewhere in the ancestry search, I learned that pretty fast. You don't get much info if you don't even know a name. Tonight I got a name, and she told me his parent's came from Holland to Ellis Island (how cool is that? My great grandparents are listed in the Ellis Island records). I knew it was a long shot but I took to Google, went to the passenger search of Ellis Island, and guess what....I found him. He came here on July 1, 1922 from Bussum, Holland.

I always make jokes of how I'm part Mexican (yes, I actually am but you'd never guess...hence the jokes), and even though I knew I was Dutch I never really looked into that part of who I am. I was telling my mom earlier that I wanted to know more about her family because: one it's a part of me that I know nothing about, and two because I don't look like anyone in the family. According to my mom my looks come from that side of the family. Now I'm really fascinated to find out more about this side of me.  Maybe I'm much more like the VanZyl's than I ever knew?


Another thing I learned tonight from talking to my mom was there was a murder in our family. I don't know details yet, my uncle just found a newspaper article about it (I'll be getting the article soon) but I'm sooo curious about the story! All I know is this: my great, great, great, great (?) grandparents who lived in the south were really wealthy, like....really wealthy apparently, and one night some people broke into their house intending to rob them but my great, great, great,great (?) grandma refused to tell them where they hid their money. So the intruders almost beat her to death, murdered her husband, and something with a baby....

I'm tellin ya....family histories are dirty, scandalous stuff.

Is anyone else as intrigued about ancestry as I am?
Does anyone have any "search" tips for me?

I have no idea how to do immigration ancestry searches....

*Update: I got the newspaper article clip from my mom. Let's just say the past hour FLEW by while I searched both the husband and wife's names like a madman.

If anyone who stumbles upon this happens to know more about Hannah Reeves Grinder Baker (or Willem VanZyl)- let's chat!