Update: my picture project!

Remember the picture project I started this summer? I am done!!

I spent HOURS organizing, scanning and putting in albums, but I am finally done with these pictures! I have put our family memories into multiple safe places :) We found the boxes and boxes of old pictures stashed away, pulled them out and organized them all over the dining room table by year. We then went back and organized them in order within each year. By we, I mean me and my mom, I did the overall organizing but she went back through and fixed what I screwed up (it's kind of hard to remember things when I was 3 years old...).

Attempting to organize

All of the odd shaped pictures I scanned by hand on a normal printer/scanner. I also searched through my dad's computer for all of the pictures he has digitally uploaded in the past 5-10 years, since we've had digital cameras. Between all of those, I had about 4000 pictures, before even getting into the 1980-2004 prints. Then it was time to take all of those prints to Target, to use their rapid scanner. I posted up in Target for about 8 hours and scanned non stop. I "printed" cds every so often, so that it wouldn't be too large of a chunk of data to send. I ended up with 24 cds holding 5,580 pictures!!



The rapid scanner
 
My set up at Target, one of the many boxes full of pictures to scan

Each cd has an index print with it (the little pictures to show you what is on the cd)... well they are in no particular order. Those prints do not, in any way, match the order of what is on the cd. So it has been quite a hassle to sort out what cd has what years on it, etc. Not only are those prints out of order but the cds are also not in the exact order that I scanned them. We worked so hard to have each set of pictures in order from Jan-Dec... well on the cd they are somewhat in order, but really pretty mixed together. So frustrating!!!

So after having to sort out the cd mess, I copied the pictures from the cds to my usb, in folders of each year, so that we have some organization to this. I am saving the cds but they aren't in the best order, so I am also copying the usb so that Chad has one, I have one and we can leave this one at my parent's house.

Since I did all the hard work to get the pictures in order, I didn't want to just throw them away. We bought albums on sale at Michaels and I put all of the pictures into photo albums, in order. Now we have them all on a shelf in the den, right next to the couch to be pulled out and looked at whenever :)

All of the photo albums!

All of the albums stored on the shelf by the couch

Lastly, I uploaded the folders to picasa web albums to store the pictures electronically. You can also tag pictures on there, using people or captions. So I made categories for things like birthdays, vacations, christmas, etc. This way if you click on a category every picture that has been tagged with it, no matter the year or folder that it is in, will come up and you can look through them all together.

Shew... that was even exhausting to explain, much less accomplish.

Long Overdue

I'm still here!! Somehow time just kept slipping away from me and now summer is over. This is the third day of school, with students, and things are already back to full-speed ahead. Summer seems to get shorter every year. I thoroughly enjoyed having time this summer to help my parents with the huge picture project (that I will update about shortly), hang out with my pups and go on vacations. I thought I'd update you on the last part of summer, since I haven't blogged in a while.

We went to the beach, to visit Trey's parents, a couple of more times during the summer. Our friend Sadler, and his lab Sullivan came with us once and we took the boat out, with all three dogs. They had a blast. Sullivan loves to just cruise, he casually swims around just hanging out, its too cute... especially compared to my crazy dogs. Vegas loves to swim and Tyson is finally getting it down pretty good, he's gotten to be a pretty good swimmer. Shortly after we got out there, Vegas realized that there was a stump sticking out of the ground so she enjoyed attacking the tree (she LOVES sticks). We also took a few toys and let the dogs play fetch in the water... Vegas would always win, but Tyson would catch up and hold on to the toy too, sometimes playing tug of war, in the water, while they were still swimming!

Vegas chewing the tree stump


My boys

Tyson swimming to his daddy

What are you doing out there dad?!

Sullivan just cruising

Vegas got the toy

But Tyson always catches up and joins in on the carry

We kept Trey's sister's dog, Matty, since Mandy joined the coast guard and is living in Michigan. Matty will be joining her up there in October but she has been staying with his parents since April. She is also a boxer, about a year older than Tyson and they best friends. They adore each other and will play non stop. When we go to the beach to visit they have so much fun hanging out together (and Vegas too, but the boxer love is especially strong). One weekend as we were leaving she followed us and gave us a look like "what about me?" so we gave in and brought her home. We kept her for two weeks, since we were going back to the beach on Trey's next weekend off. All three dogs had a great time playing together. Matty has more energy than Vegas or Tyson and sometimes they would be napping on the couch while Matty still walked around searching for something to do, I swear she only sleeps at night, in the crate. She is super sweet though and we all had a great time.

"The three best friends that anyone could have"

Matty, Tyson & Vegas (notice that my 2 are actually asleep while Matty isnt!)


Bringing 3 dogs home in the back of the jetta doesn't leave enough room....

Matty riding shotgun

Who is who?! Driving back to the beach....

Boxer snuggles

Just two coming home to Raleigh this time


The last weekend in July I went to New York to visit my college roommate, Allison. I flew up Friday morning and met her for lunch, did a little shopping then went back to her apartment to wait for her to get off of work. Lola (who she got in college, so I'm like her "aunt") was at the apartment, and super excited to see me! So I took her for a walk around the city :) She knew her way better than I did! That night, after a quite a rain delay, we went to a Yankees game and out to a bar afterwards.


Lola the city dog

Yankee game
Saturday we went to Coney Island! It was very... interesting! We rode a lot of rides, some were actually kind of scary and some were just hilarious. We rode the famous roller coaster, it was way more intense than we were expecting, but fun! And of course we ate at the original Nathan's Hot Dogs! Sunday we went to brunch at PS450 that has an awesome deal you get brunch & all you can drink mimosas/bloody marys/bolinis for $25... that's a deal, especially in NYC! I had such a great time visiting her and then headed back to town Sunday night (with a few delays, of course... I don't think I've ever gotten out of NYC easily.)
Cyclone Roller Coaster

Most hilarious ride ever

The original Nathan's
Oh and while I was gone, Trey sent me this adorable picture of Tyson watching Marley and Me (without Trey provoking him to do so)



He watched Marley & Me for like 15 minutes!

The next weekend we went to the beach for one last summer visit. The fall gets really busy with WOLFPACK FOOTBALL! And Trey works every third weekend, so we won't be making it back to the beach for a while.

We went to the Sublime/311 concert at Walnut Creek in early August. It was super hot but awesome! We had pit tickets, so we got to stand right below the stage.

Sublime with Rome


311
 I started back to school on August 17th... we had 6 workdays (full of meetings... yuck) and then the kids returned on August 25th! My childhood friend Marianna came to town for a couple of weeks around the same time and we went to a cookout/baby shower for their baby boy that is coming in October! It was such a blast and so wonderful to catch up with old friends. And while they were in town they also just had to go eat at Kanki so I couldn't turn down tagging along for to my favorite restaurant! Marianna and Brian are now off to Oklahoma (he's in the army) so I won't be seeing them again until Christmas... but at least then I'll get to meet baby!!

And lastly, "hurricane Irene" came through this weekend... it was pretty lame in Raleigh. Not that I wanted to have any devistation or anything but we only got about a half an inch of rain!! We also have to some leaves and sticks that we now get to clean up out of our yard. Some people around town lost power, but we never did! Trey's parents lost it for a couple of days down at the beach, but they also didn't have any big damage - thank goodness! Basically Irene ruined our planned pool day, for no reason.

I'll update my picture project soon and then I promise not to stay gone for so long. I guess I just got lazy!

Wolfpack Football in 4 days!! WOOHOO

We're ready for tailgate season... This is a light sign that my parents ordered for the RV... in the mean time it is garage decoration!