WOOHOO!!!

I am DONE scanning my 35mm negatives! (Notice I said 35mm - as I have disc and 110 that I need to try to figure out if my scanner can do - but at least I am done so I can work on Chad's photos for graduation) I ended up with almost 3300 jpegs. I elected to just scan everything rather than go thru and only scan the ones that I wanted - I became rather methodical this way and probably much faster in the long run. Here are a few pictures from the earlier years. I don't think the boys know about my blog, or if they do I doubt they ever look at it. I'm sure they'd kill me for some of these pictures.

Pictures

Scanning all these negatives just makes me laugh at what I thought was 'photographic'! Based upon the number of pictures I took of the following, I must've thought I'd never ever again see these ...
- deer
- elk
- ducks and geese - you can't believe the number of pictures I took of these animals!
- groves of golden aspen
And to think of the cost of the film and the developing! LOL
Not like I don't take pictures of these animals now - but it's simply the click of a delete button.
And speaking of pictures of animals ... I have almost as many pictures of the cats as I do the boys! (OK, maybe not quite)

Same 'ole, same 'ole

Well ... it's a week later and not much has changed. I am still scanning and we're still working on the living room. No surprises there! LOL
We are about done with the living room though! I just spackled some nail holes in the baseboards and will paint them shortly after they dry for a bit. Then I think we'll mostly be done! YEH!!! I'll post a current picture later tonight. Terry redid the electronics so things come on when they should and go off when they should with the push of just one button. I'm so glad he understands that stuff ... cuz I sure don't! So now it is turning the corner to the dining room to finish the wainscoting (which we started several years ago) and then give it a coat of paint.
On the scanning front ... welllll ... I thought I only had about 85 rolls of negatives. I was nearing completion the other night and was thinking 'hmmm, I don't recall seeing our vacation from 1998 in the stack'. Lo and behold ... I found another 75 or so rolls! So ... I'll be at this scanning business for just a tad bit longer than originally anticipated. I will have to post some of these pictures ... they are just too funny. I can hardly believe that my babies used to be that little!
Well ... I've got painting to do ... so I'd better get to it!

OK ... picture uploaded as promised. Looks nice, eh??

How many trips to Home Depot do you think it will take?

Why do I allow him to go to Home Depot alone? We took the baseboards off in the living room and are putting 4" ones on like we did down in the family room. You'd think he could get the right ones ... but NOOOOO ... what he came home with doesn't match. So ... trip #2 back to HD to exchange and get the correct baseboards (good thing gas isn't still $4 a gallon!). I have the painting done except for the wall behind the entertainment center and some of the trim along the ceiling. It's 5:15 now ... I'm hoping to get the baseboards painted tonight so we can get them put on tomorrow and the living room put back together ... or there will be yet another unfinished project ... not like that would be a surprise ... but I'm just hoping. Terry does a very good job at these DIY projects ... but he's very picky and as a result it takes him a while (i.e. part of why there are still not baseboards and doorframes in various parts of the hours from the flood we had 4+ years ago). Well, I better go help him with the lasagna. LOL ... NEVER A DULL MOMENT!!! Laughter is the best medicine ya know!
Let me know what y'all think of the color - I think you can tell from the pic pretty well ...

Scanning, scanning, and more scanning

I've been preparing for Chad's graduation. I finally got his senior pictures ordered and I'm now working on the previous 18 years. We've been digital since 2000, so I only have the first 9 years of his life to digitize - which amounts to about 100 rolls of 35mm film (at least I have all my negatives organized - "Thank you Creative Memories!"). Each 24 exposure takes me about an hour to scan and get saved to my harddisk. So, that is looooots of hours of scanning - and I'm only about a third done at this point. Then I still have to organize and get them scrapped! Thank goodness for digital scrapbooking. It will make this process a lot faster. Again "Thank you Creative Memories!"!! I use their Memory Manager to organize and Storybook Creator Plus to scrap them. The photo on this post was made with SBC+ ... don't ya love it? I may tweak it yet before the final version to print, but I think my first stab at it is pretty awesome.
I also made out our 'have to do before graduation day' list. HA! We should've started on it years ago! Oh yeah ... we did! We just don't have anything FINISHED on the list! Follow-thru to completion is not a strong suit in this house.
I'm going to try to get the living room painted today. It's still too cold out to do much outside - namely work on finishing painting the house. Maybe Terry will work on the family room floor and/or stairs. That we started last labor day. We were on a roll and got the floor itsself done, but then we needed to wait for the trim to come in, which was about a month later, and we lost our momentum on that. Ahhh ... the joys of home ownership ... always something to do.
Well ... I'm going to finish up a roll of scanning and then paint the living room. I'll take some before and after pics. Let me know what ya think!

Rows and rows of books

Only a few hours left until we have to depart the FHL. We've had a great week - researching our ancestors AND not having to work. We will drive a couple of hours tonight and stay in Evanston, WY and then continue on home tomorrow.
It's Brendan's 15th birthday today ... I can hardly believe it. My baby is growing up. I called and chatted with him for a few minutes this morning. I also talked to Trent. He's off to a Clint Black concert in Minneapolis. I hope they had a good drive up there ... he said it was not very nice weather - cold, snowy, blowing ....
Well ... I'd best make better use of my time here the last few hours.

And when is our next trip back here....???

Hiatus

Well ... it's time for another update. LOL ... nothing like a couple month hiatus! We haven't painted in a while now ... holidays, weather, etc. So ... the house still isn't 100% painted. Unfortunately it doesn't paint itself.
We spent a couple of weeks over Thanksgiving in Wellsburg at my parents' house, then came home for a couple of weeks and then went back for a week over Christmas. That's enough of that long trip for a while.
This week Terry and I are in Salt Lake City at the Family History Library doing genealogy. I think we've done all the easy stuff already because this week's finds are much harder and further between. I do think we've both managed to add a set or two of grandparents though.
Terry has a cousin (there's a 1st removed in there somewhere I think - but even I get lost at that sometimes, so we'll just call them cousins) and her family living here. Steve and Yvonne invited us to their house Sunday and we talked 'family history' for a couple of hours. Their sons and families came over later in the afternoon and we all enjoyed dinner together. We had an absolutely wonderful time.
Cortney, their daughter-in-law, is a member of the Temple Bell Choir and she invited us to come to their rehearsal last night. It was nothing short of wonderful and I do think it was the highlight of the week for me (sorry ancestors - but some other things just move in front of you sometimes). The director greeted us at the door and we had 4 chairs front and center! LOL ... never really expected that ... but it was the best seat in the house I'm sure. After we had listened to a couple of songs Ron gave us a tour of the Tabernacle and it's underground world. It was truly amazing. We had no idea that was going to happen and we were truly amazed and very, very thankful.
Well ... I'll try to be better at updates and what-not ... but for now it's off to the FHL for more investigation!
TTFN!
Tammy