Saint Louis Park Invite

Swim season is in full swing and we are spending lots of time at the pool. The boys both did very well at the Saint Louis Park invite where Jack got 3rd place in the 200 free and 1st in the 500 free (20 laps of the pool!) Will had his personal best time in the breast stroke! Go boys!

1.11.2011

Have yourself a lucky little day!

THE BOOK!

Here is the cover of Uncle Fred's book!

...I have finally finished "The Book" for my dear Uncle Fred. My cousins commisioned me to put together this book about a year ago! I scanned in over 800 photos, old and new. Each of his kids, grandkids, sisters and wife wrote him a birthday note to tell him how much he means to them. I put all of that together into a 120 page book that is 13" x 11" and I have to say that it is awesome!

We printed a "first edition" for them to take down to Mexico to give him on his birthday trip in May (only 80 pages) and since then, we have been adding all kinds of fun photos and memories. It could go on forever, but I think we are finally done! You can see the entire book here at Blurb. Here are a few thumbnails of the inside pages!

Now I want to "travel" down memory lane with my own brothers and sisters and make one for my mom and dad for next Christmas! We will have a lake/vacation theme and have each of the kids and grandkids write their favorite memory of the lake! It is the perfect gift for the special people in our lives that have everything they want and need!

In the news

Swim season is upon us and the boys are off to a good start. Will is proud to be captain this year. He is in charge of sparking up the troops and does so with a vintage boom box and vintage tunes complete with dancing on the other team's bus! Have fun this season boys! (click on the images above for a bigger version if you want to read the details!)

One little word...Travel

I've been picking a word for the last few years that describes my goals for each new turn of the calendar page. Ali Edwards is the one who first inspired me to do this. She has such a great blog with ideas on how to stay creative and use the simple things around you to get inspired.

In 2009 my word was Vitality, In 2010 my word was Photograph...which I did every day for 365 days! I read a lot of tutorials and challenges about photography and I do think that I made some improvements.

This year I want to make a very big dent in the stacks, boxes and piles of paper, photos, memorabilia, postcards, baby books, and saved memories that I have "hoarded" in this house of ours. Will graduates from High School in June, so I'd like to make him a book or two of his childhood experiences. I want my word to reflect the tasks I would like to accomplish, but I want the word to be more fun than the initial word that popped into my head... organize

From organize, I came up with arrange, systematize, blueprint, etc...but they all seemed a little too mundane! Then I came across Clarify...

Clarify was good, but still not the right word...that led me to tidy, tailor, filter, get act together, sort...still not right

Then I came across Travel...ahhh this sounds like I could be getting closer to the word that describes what I would like to do in 2011. Now this is not the traditional travel, like getting on a jet plane and circling the globe, oh no...this is the travel down memory lane, roaming through boxes of old photos, taking a trek through a "vintage" stack of photos with negatives, taking a journey back in time when my 18 year old William and 16 year old Jackson were just tiny little things with feet that smelled good! I think that is my word for 2011, TRAVEL!

Now I still will have to sort, organize, filter, clean, purge, and basically get my act together around here, but doesn't the word travel make it sound like it will be much more fun?

361_365

I did it! I took a photo of the day each and every day for 365 days! It was fun to do (once in your life) but I have to say that I won't be continuing this practice in 2011. I found that it was an excellent way to work on my photo techniques, but the presure of taking a real meaningful photo every day took the fun out of the process for me.

White Christmas

We had a fabulous White Christmas with so much snow that we broke the record for the most snow ever recorded in December! Way to go Minnesota...33.4 inches were recorded at the MSP airport, just breaking the previous record of 33.2 inches from 1969!

Christmas Eve 2010

Josephina Ann on Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve at Grandy and Grandpa's was amazing and festive this year. We enjoyed the children's choir at St. Pat's at 4:00 and then off to 348 6th Ave for some dinner and gifts. Grandpa read his annual book to all the kids and Santa made a stop to pass out some presents for the little ones. Pete, Jake, Jack, Brooke and Holly turned 16 in 2010, so they got to come upstairs with the adults for the gift exchange...what a fun year for them!

Merry Christmas everyone!

See the slideshow here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23958194@N04/sets/72157625596479275/show/