A Christmas Present for Dad

We invited my Dad to spend Christmas with us this year. He had requested my help on a project earlier in the year. The project was costing a bit more than I had expected, so I decided that the project would be our Christmas present to him.

I think it was last year at Christmas, when my Dad gave me all of his photo slides and asked for my help in scanning them. My parents had purchased a scanner that was supposed to do the job, so I took that with me. Well, the scanner wasn't really designed to copy the slides. There were other models of the same brand that could do it, but not the one that they had purchased.

A lot happened after I committed to taking on this project. My father in law died, then my mother died, then we bought a new house & moved. Sometime in November I started looking at reviews online for equipment that could convert the slides to digital images. I finally settled on the Wolverine F2D14. I was all set to purchase it when the price jumped up $30! Finally, the week of Christmas, I went ahead & purchased it.


This is about half of Dad's slide collection.

Here's the Wolverine slide converter that I purchased.

It came with 2 trays - one for negatives and one for slides. I ended up ordering an extra set of 3 slide trays to speed up the process.

We used compressed air to spray the slides before scanning them to help get rid of the dust.

The Wolverine machine was super easy to use! Within a few days, we had converted over 1000 of Dad's slides. We still have at least another 1000 to go, but Dad's not in any hurry. He hasn't seen any of these in 40 plus years, so what's another few weeks or months?

I enjoyed looking through all the old pictures with Dad. After we converted them to digital, we sorted them into different categories. Dad narrated a lot of the pictures as we were looking through them.

I thought I would share some.

Here's a picture of my mom from college.

Dad at his graduation from IU.

My young Dad (on the right) with his cousin John (left) and brother Ken (center.)

These are "Cousin Roy, Cousin Dorothy, & Cousin Turpin". Dorothy & Turpin were my paternal Grandmother's cousins. Roy was Dorothy's husband. Dorothy was the one who told my father about this nice little town north of Indianapolis called Carmel. Dorothy died in 1991, shortly after Chris & I got married. She was in a nursing home at that time. We actually had the limo make a detour on the way to the reception so we could go say hi to her. We didn't have much time because we only rented the limo for an hour, so Chris & I were literally running through the nursing home in our wedding attire to see her.

Here's a picture of mom. I really liked her hair in this one. It's the longest I've seen of her in her adult years. Plus, her shoes were kind of stylish. Not too fond of her dress though!

Here is a picture of my Dad's side of the family. Front row is Dad's cousin David and his wife, then a happy mom in the center and Dad. The back row is Uncle Benson, Aunt Annie Laurie, Aunt Willa, Uncle Oscar, Grandpa Swain, Aunt Helen, and Grandma Swain.

These are my Grandparents, Huber & Mary Eunice Swain. Grandma just opened a present sometime in this early 1960's picture. It was a glass candy dish. It is one of the few things I got after she died.

My parents hosted a 40th anniversary party for my grandparents in 1969.

Here is a picture of me! Grandma Robbins is on the left, then mom, Grandma Swain, me and Grandpa Swain. Mom was pregnant with my brother George.

I LOVE this picture of me with my grandparents. (except for my blurring arm which looks missing).

I only had 2 or 3 birthday parties when I was a child. This is a picture of my 6 year old party. (I'm turning 46 this week!!!)  Let's see if I can remember everyone! From left to right: Marcia, Me, Stephanie, Michelle, Stacy, Kristen, & Mary Lynn.

In this picture we have Grandma Swain who is holding my cousin Katherine, Mom, Aunt Brenda, and me. Katherine is about 15 months younger than me. She was born a couple of weeks before George.

Here's a picture of all of my grandparents. Mom's parents on the left, Dad's on the right.

Here is Mom & Dad at their 1st wedding anniversary.

 

Here's a cute picture of my sister, Bethany. 

 

 

 

Here's a family picture. Now over the Christmas holidays, we watched the Sound of Music. Don't you think those drapes would make great play clothes?????

As I said, I still have about 1000 slides to convert. Those are all of Dad's pictures from his days in the Army.

Tassimo House Party

I LOVE House Party! If you haven't heard of them, check them out at https://www.houseparty.com/
Basically, House Party is a new way of advertising. You apply to be a host & if you are selected, you invite some friends over to learn about a new product. A party kit is sent to you before the event with favors & goodies. I've hosted several house parties in the past, but it had been at least more than a year since my last one. So I was super excited when I was selected to host a Tassimo House Party!

Tassimo is a brand of Coffee Maker that uses little individual coffee discs. The Tassimo machine is made by Bosch which makes high end appliances & power tools.

My party pack included:

a Tassimo T55 Home Brewing System
Gevalia Latte T-Discs
Carte Noir Signature Roast Coffee T-Discs
Tim Horton Coffee T-Discs

Then I purchased some non-coffee T-Discs at Bed Bath & Beyond.


The chai tea latte was Hannah's favorite.

It's hot chocolate season!

More coffee.

My guests received a coupon for 40% off their own Tassimo machine. I have a few extras, so if you are interested, let me know. I purchased some hot/cold travel cups for my guests, too.

Here's my group. We were a small group, but we had a fun time! Everyone tried a coffee beverage & a non-coffee one.

Thank you to House Party & to Tassimo for this awesome House Party!!!

Snow White

Here is the picture that our friend, Eric took of Hannah on Halloween.

And here is Hannah with her friends. Front row: Belle & Tinkerbell. Back row: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty & Ariel.

Eric's website: http://ericwashburn.com/
Eric on FB: https://www.facebook.com/washburnphoto

Halloween Recap

We went back to our old neighborhood to celebrate Halloween this year. One of our neighbors hosted the annual cul-de-sac party in his driveway.

Hannah and several of her school friends dressed up as Disney princesses this year. Hannah was Snow White.

Here's Hannah with her good friend who used to live next door to us.

Hannah & one of her princess friends. We had our photographer friend take pics of all the princesses together. I will share that when he sends it to me.

James wore his usual mask & enjoyed scaring older kids.

The weather was so nice this year. It sprinkled for about a minute or two, but that was all. The temperature was fairly warm.

It was nice getting to hang out in the old 'hood with our friends.

Creepy Crawlies!

I am not particularly fond of bugs. Our new house has had quite a few bugs. I just don't get it!! It's not a new house, but there are lots of ways for the bugs to get in. When we first moved into our previous house, James came running to me saying "Mommy, there's a baby dinosaur in the basement". The dinosaur turned out to be a little anole lizard.

After the dinosaur incident, Chris surveyed the exterior of the house and found all kinds of cracks and holes which he sealed up.

Now in our new house, the first invasion we had was stink bugs. Evidently stink bugs have been a problem for many people down in Georgia. Now if only we had baby dinosaurs living in this house! Lizards eat bugs, so that would be a good thing.

The stink bugs lasted for about a week. I've seen a few outside, but they haven't been in the house lately.

After the stink bugs, we had some tiny ants.

Chris set up some bait traps and the ants were under control in a day or so.

Then this past weekend, we found lots of millipedes crawling around in the basement. Hannah & I vacuumed them up as fast as we could.

Chris & James were out of town during the millipede debacle. Yuck!!!

This morning I saw a lady bug in the house. Flash forward a few hours and now we have lots of lady bugs.

Now that Chris is back in town & marching band season is nearing the end, this week's project is to seal any cracks and holes to keep those uninvited creatures OUT! There are a couple of exterior doors that have space under them to allow bugs to get in. There's a decorative window that's high up that appears to be slightly open. I just don't get it!!!! Didn't the previous home owners notice that bugs could get inside easily!?!??

So hopefully this is the end of our creepy crawlies!!

Halloween Decorations

I usually start decorating for Halloween on October 1st. Things were a bit behind schedule with our late September move date. We did manage to find some time to do a little decorating this past weekend.

As far as interior decorating, I only decorated the fireplace mantle and hearth this year. I love my collection on musical Hallmark characters on the hearth! The kids were so amused by them when they were younger.

Here's a close up of the mantle. Here's the link to my post from last year about making the altered printer's tray. Halloween Altered Printer's Tray

We also did minimal decorating outside.

Close up of some of our tombstones that we made last year. Tombstones

Although simple, we are happy to at least have a few decorations out this year. But with only a week before Halloween, it seemed like too much of an effort for such a short time. Hope the new neighbors appreciate our holiday decorating!!

All Moved In

We've been in the new house for 1 month now. We've made a lot of progress unpacking, but there is still a lot to do. We did get one of the cars in the garage last weekend which was a huge accomplishment!

Why did we move? After the death of my father-in-law this past March and my mother in May, we decided that we needed a home with a designated guest room. We aren't expecting anyone to move in with us, but we are hoping we will have more frequent and longer visits from our remaining parents. Up until now, we've just rearranged the kids to accommodate guests.

The new house is less than 10 minutes away from our old house and it's in the same schools. That was pretty important to us. We have more rooms and living space, but less storage. The new neighborhood is small & quiet and the yard is much larger.

In the 22 years we've been married, with the exception of the first 10 months where we lived in an upstairs apartment, we've always had a main floor bedroom. That is until now! Let's just say, I'm getting a lot more exercise!

I'll post more pictures when we finish unpacking.

Star Wars Exhibit at the Indiana State Museum

In July, the kids & I went up to Indiana for a week to help my father go through some of Mom's stuff. The traveling Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit was at the Indiana State Museum while we were in town. We missed it when it came to Atlanta a few years ago, so I took James & Hannah to see it. Chris' older brother met us there with his family and so did our friends from Georgia who were also in Indy visiting family.

There were lots of real movie props on display.

There were also lots of hands-on type activities. Here is Hannah on a hovercraft.

Hannah & her cousin Daniel building some kind of lego vehicle.

It was fun seeing the costumes!

Our Georgia friends who were in Indy while we were there.

James and Ryan having fun.

 

 Now that James has his learners permit, he's in the market for some transportation!

Hannah, James, & Darth Vader

The pendulum is something I always associate with the State Museum.

James is standing next to an old WFBM tv camera. My grandfather used to be one of the camera men for WFBM "back in the day". He actually used that camera to film the first broadcast of the Indianapolis 500.

James & Hannah with their cousins outside the museum.

A great day at the museum!