God bless the world of digital photography. I love that I can take pictures, simply plug my camera or phone into the computer and VOILA...pictures ready to edit, print, and share. Over the past 3 years I have averaged about 2400 pictures each year. That is 7200 pictures! Acquiring an iPhone, which takes fantastic pictures, and an iMac desktop computer, which has iPhoto - the easiest way to download and edit pictures - has really contributed to my picture excess. The total number of pictures on my computer is somewhere around 8700. Although iPhoto organizes the pictures by date, there are a lot of scanned pictures from the "old days" before we had digital cameras that I have to manually fix. What this equates to is A LOT of hours in front of the computer. I am trying to get everything organized by year because eventually I would like to make year books with printed versions of the best photos.
All of that aside, it has been both a sobering and joyful experience walking down memory lane this week. The reality, that my oldest son, who I swear was just born last year, is 5 years away from graduating from high school, has hit me really hard. 5 years! I have teared up every time I think about it. It starts me down a path of thinking about all of the things I haven't done for him and my other two. The fact that we have never owned our own home. Never been to Disneyland. No awesome kid friendly backyard that he got to make memories in, jumping on the tramp we have never owned. No camping - don't even own a tent...and on and on. Really depressing huh?
But thankfully, I have great friends who remind me that what my children DO have is a childhood that has been full of LOVE. I have given them structure, taught them about consequences, kissed their hurts, cried with them, been to almost all of their school performances, involved them in sports and theater and music, and tried as hard as I could to be the best Mother they could ever want or need. And even though we haven't actually owned a home, my kids have and will continue to attend the same schools and we have at the very least remained the in same neighborhood of sorts so at least they feel rooted here. That counts for something, right? I am certainly not perfect, but nothing in life is and that is a valuable lesson, which hopefully, when they are grown and have children of their own, they will be able to look back and understand just how important that lesson has been for them. Now, I just have to work on getting them to Disneyland before Ian turns 16.
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| Addison as young Merida in the musical "A Brave Tale" |
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| The lead actors in the play |
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| A day at the park |
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| Ian's violin recital |
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| Hiking with Dad |
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| Learning to FlyFish |
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