Surprise! I flew down to Florida yesterday to surprise my mom for Mother’s Day. It was such a tough secret to keep because we talk so frequently. There were a few times where I almost blew it! The funniest part though was that pretty much everyone knew, except for my mom. My dad and sister were in on it– and my sister let a lot of my mom’s friends know. My mom was so confused when I knocked on the front door!
I had been trying to get my schedule to align so I could make another trip to visit and this was my only chance until August, so I just had to go for it. This is also my mom’s busy season for her cake pops. Trying to piece together my mom’s schedule from my sister and my dad was the hardest part. Happy to report that it all worked out though and I’m just excited to get to spend Mother’s Day with her. ❤️
One thing that has increasingly been a goal of mine is to digitize all of our old family photos. My dad was great about taking photographs throughout our childhood (not video though… even though I begged for a video camera as soon as I was old enough to understand it!). We have stacks of photo albums with so many memories. I think it’s going to be a slow process, with me scanning the photographs in chunks in Connecticut and then swapping the batch with my parents for another group. I have the scanning process down to a science already.
As I’ve been scanning the photos, I do not only remember these fun events, but I’m also kind of relearning our family history. While I do have actual memories once my sister came into the picture, it’s incredible to see our family grow up together throughout the photographs. Obviously, my sister and I were growing up, but my parents were too. They look impossibly young in the photos, and there is just so much love. For each other and the family. I know not everyone is as lucky in the family department and I do not take it for granted. I am so grateful to have been brought up in a supportive family with parents, who although not perfect, gave us every ounce of effort they had.
(My sister and I often lament to each other that they set the marriage and parenting bar so high, we wonder if we’ll ever be able to match it with our partners.)
Sharing some of our favorite old photos together because I just can’t resist!
This is such a sweet post! Looking back through old photos is one of my favorite things to do! Have fun celebrating with your mom.
Taylor | http://www.livingtaylored.com
Awww, I love the older pics! Digitizing your photos is such a great idea. I should start doing that too!
Charmaine Ng | Architecture & Lifestyle Blog
http://charmainenyw.com
Hey Carly! Did you ever consider sending your photos into a service that would scan them in for you? Just wondering before I start up this big task as well!
You sound like he ideal daughter. Being away from my mum myself has taught me to value her much more because having her around me all the time when I was growing up, made me take her for granted but now I can’t imagine leaving again.
– https://evanasfirsttimes.wordpress.com
This is so wonderful, Carly! I hope you’re having the best time celebrating Mothers Day weekend with your Mum!
I hope you have a lovely Sunday,
Michael
https://www.mileinmyglasses.co.uk
Carly, you need this scanner for your photo project. I don’t own one but professionals in the scrapbook industry love it. It is on my wish list. Scans photos pretty fast. http://scanners.fcpa.fujitsu.com/scansnap11/features_iX500.html
Here’s an idea for you – look into the site blurb.com and as you are scanning your photos, create “yearbooks” of your family’s memories (not my original idea – got it from Pinterest). That way, whoever wants a copy of the photos as an album can get one. Great quality as I’ve used the site to create vacation albums and for my boy’s school (8th grade memory book and play and football books) Also upload the scanned photos to an on-line site (I use smugmug.com) to keep them safe in case of a computer crash – easy to print and download! Good luck – you are so smart to take this on and be sure to put names to faces!!!
Your mom looks JUST like Stacy in the last photo!!
I thought the same thing, it’s crazy!
Sweet post Carly! Could you do a post on how you efficiently scan your photos? My family also has a ton of photos which need to be transferred.
I’ve been doing 20 at a time… and I have a cheap-o scanner/printer I got from Target. The program it came with is great and you can batch the scans and export at once so it really doesn’t take much time!
This is such a sweet post and I am glad the surprise worked out! Hope you and your family had a lovely Mother’s Day!
You should try LegacyBox! Naomi at Love Taza did a sponsored post about them: http://lovetaza.com/2016/03/preserving-old-photos-and-videos/
My dad was also fantastic about taking photos of our family, and he still is! I don’t know where all his photos go though haha -Audrey | Brunch at Audrey’s
I would love a post that shows your process for uploading old family pictures and organizing them! I would love to start doing that, but it seems so overwhelming.