Preserving Our Memories

It has been crazily busy for us since March.  First we had our son visit for three wonderful weeks.  Less than two weeks later we left for Japan in April for almost three weeks. 

As soon as we returned we tried to work on our trip album for Japan, but with four cameras worth of photos (28 GB) to go through, it was a monumental job!  Once we got our photos chosen I formatted them onto pages.  Then we did a lot of research to enhance our understanding of what we had seen and added them to the photos.  Next came speech bubbles to add humor and trigger our memories of what we were thinking at the time. 

Not even half the work was done on the Japan album when our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter arrived in May.  We had a glorious two week visit. 

We then once again began our push to finish the Japan album.  We completed it a couple of weeks ago.  192 pages!!!  We printed it for mom whose eye healed just in time to be able to use her glasses (after her tear duct surgery) and relive our incredible journey through Japan.

Then we started work on a trip album for our granddaughter.  She'd seen parts of the Trip to Japan album and was captivated by the speech bubbles.  We promised to make her one also. 

I planned to just send her a digital copy that she could view on her computer screen, but her softy grandfather, Art felt we should print her one just like the Japan album we printed for my mom.

I didn't think she'd need or want one, but I got a phone call from KC saying, "Grandma, could you print the speech bubble album for me please?"

Sigh...

Somehow printing the album put more pressure on me because I felt like it was now a permanent copy that would be shown and needed to be as error free as possible.

The album was only 58 pages since I was the principal photographer and Art and Tif didn't take as many photos.

Now I'm working on Jon and Sarah's album.  They were the first to come and visit, but I knew they wouldn't mind our working on KC's album, especially since they're some place in Peru right now.

Why do we do this?  It's a WHOLE LOT of painstaking, often tedious, stressful, totally consuming, often agonizing, occasionally argumentative, creative, exhausting work!  We end up stuck to the computer concentrating day and night on the project. 

So why do we do this? 
To remember!  We tend to forget so much.  Looking at photos with no explanation can't jog our memories very easily.  We need the notes and stories written to re-ignite our memories and bring back the pleasure.  Mom forgets even more.  When we mention things to her about a trip, she'll say she can't remember it at all.  Then she'll look at the album and the notes she made as well which we also include and most of her memories will return.  We spend so much money on the trips.  It's a shame to lose a penny of the memories we bought.

We especially love seeing how an album of a past trip will be on Mom's family room table showing us that she'd been reliving a travel we'd done.  It makes all the agony of a month's work worthwhile.  Mom also loves sharing the albums with her family and friends  who enjoy reading what she's experienced.   Yes, it's worth it. 

So now we're almooooost done with Jon and Sarah's album.  I'll actually have more time at the computer that doesn't involve formatting photos.  Another day or two, I think...

Then I can catch up and see what you've all been doing.  Yahoo!