Summer Trip to Indy

Hannah & I went up to Indianapolis for a short trip to visit all of her grandparents.

We drove up on Sunday. We left nice & early so we could arrive early at Dad's. However, our efforts were thwarted by construction on I-65 in Southern Indiana and we arrived about 2 hours later than we had expected.

On Monday, we went to the Hamilton County Fair. When I was a kid, I was very active in 4-H, so the county fair was an important part of our summers. Hannah was excited to see all the animals.

It made me sad that 4-H isn't that big in North Georgia. I know Hannah would have LOVED to be a part of it. Of course, I probably wouldn't let her have a llama.

 Or a chicken.....

or any sheep.....

The food at the fair was super cheap! Here Hannah is enjoying a Lemon Shake Up. We also enjoyed cotton candy, soda, & the Farm Bureau chocolate milk shakes. Back in the day, I remember those milk shakes were sold for 25 cents. They were $2 each now, which is still a bargain.

On Tuesday, we met Chris' mother for a nice breakfast at The Original Pancake House.

Then we went & visited Chris' stepmother. Hannah wanted to visit the cemetery to see Chris' Dad, so we took Jeannine with us. That's something Hannah wants to do every time we're in town.

On Wednesday, we drove out to North Salem, Indiana to visit my mother. This was our first visit to the cemetery since she had been buried.

Hannah & I had a very nice lunch with my longtime friend, Joan in downtown Carmel. Joan & I met in high school & worked at the Carmel Clay Public Library together. We both went to Indiana University, so just about every Friday night, Joan came over to my dorm so we could eat dinner together. We continued that tradition even after I started dating Chris.

Then on Thursday morning, we said our goodbyes and headed back to Georgia. Here is Hannah is Grandpa Karl. It was a short, but sweet trip. It's difficult living so far away from our family at times.

More of Dad's Slides

Back in December 2013, I converted about half of Dad's slide collection. Seven months later, I finished the job.

This batch was primarily of photos taken in the late 1950's when Dad was stationed at Ladd AFB/Fort Wainright in Fairbanks, Alaska.


I liked the old signs in this picture.

Unknown friend with Ladd AFB Sign.

This is my Dad. He had an accounting type job in the army, so I'm wondering if this was where we worked.

Here he is in his dress uniform.

I loved seeing the pictures of the old stores & streets.

Alaskan scenery

Dad at Mount McKinley.

Dad in his old Lizton HS letter jacket.

Gear

Dogs

Soldiers on skis

More scenery

Another street view

Then there were some pictures from the early 60's too. Here's my Dad's parents with my mom at Tom Sawyer's fence, according to the sign.

My grandfather

There were several pictures of kitties on the farm.

I loved this kitty photo!

And a picture from 1975 when we had our Japanese exchange student, Junko. Junko brought a kimono for mom. Isn't Bethany cute??

I am very happy to be finished with all the slides. I can return them to Dad, now.

Remembering Grandpa Nick

One year ago, we lost Chris' father. Nick died unexpectedly in his sleep on Good Friday last year. We decided to do a few things on the one year anniversary to celebrate him.


If you knew Nick, you knew he LOVED to feed the squirrels around his house. His squirrels weren't just fat, they were obese! Definitely the fattest squirrels in Indy! So we decided that we would set something up to feed our squirrels.

Home Depot didn't carry regular feed corn on the cob, so we found this instead.

Chris & Hannah installed in along the fence in the back yard.

We haven't caught any nibblers in action, but there have been visitors.

Chris recalled his father LOVED chicken & dumplings. It wasn't something they ate when Chris was a child, but he remembered it as being one of his Dad's favorite meals. So in honor of his dad, we made homemade chicken & dumplings for dinner. It was a first for us. We made it with vegetable broth and before we put the chicken in it, we separated some for vegetarian Hannah.

Then for dessert, we ate ice cream. Nick loved eating a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Who doesn't?

Here's a picture that was taken during our last visit with him in December 2012.

It's hard to believe that it has been a year already. We miss you, Nick!

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.