) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Bower Community Update If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraphÂ… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer/Baur/Bro[u]wer lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bau[e]r/Bro[u]wer lines or any of the 81+ variant spellings that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. It's here that I normally tell all you new cousins about our primary home, Bower Family Homestead, and our 'vacation' spot, Bower Cottage. But, not today. We're moving to our own domain. As soon as we're set up, I'll post the new URL for everyone to see. I think you're going to be quite impressed with all the information we have waiting for you. BOWER COMMUNITY UPDATE I have to say first, that I am incredibly astounded by all the support so many of you have shown me. Contributions and words of encouragement and excitement were still coming in as of yesterday when my husband picked up the mail. Many of you are as excited by this new event in our online family as I am! ....OUR OWN HOME! CAN YOU JUST BELIEVE IT??? :) Enough! ... before I go off on another one of my tangents! :) This next part will sound vague and for that, I'm sorry. However, all our Coffees are publicly archived (as are all our messages) and I don't wish to put names and dollar amounts out on the Web. I do want to tell you all that this week a total of $200 in contributions came in. I know of one other contribution that is currently in the mail. It will finish paying the set-up fees with $10 left that I will roll over to next year's annual fees. Any other contributions in the mail that I'm not aware of will also be rolled over to next year. Your incredible support, generosity and quick rallying have just left me in awe. Thank you all for believing in me ... in the family ... in US! Also thanks to an inordinate amount of help from Gloria Motter <[email protected]> and two cousins whose names I don't have yet, the Homestead is not only already moved but has had all its links checked. The Cottage is also moved, but I'm holding off opening our domain until those links are checked as well. We should be having our official housewarming today or tomorrow! (yes, already!) It's no small task to check every link in our two sites, cousins. This job is extremely important because it ensures the pages will flow one after another as our visitors and we expect when a link is clicked on. It also verifies those pages are even onsite with all their graphics. We owe Gloria and her team a HUGE "THANK YOU, SO MUCH!" She and her team saved me a good week's worth of work, enabling us to open our doors much sooner than I anticipated. So, look for a message from me later on today or tomorrow with THE BIG NEWS ... the KEYS! <g> Family ... it's what we're all about ... I so enjoyed this time with you. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, productivity, fun, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'