Goin' on a Sentimental Journey...

The other day I received a CD in the mail from my very cool brother Rob.  I have been looking forward to this CD, and was not disappointed when I sat down and started looking at hundreds of old pictures from the time my parents got married up until I was about six or seven (I think).  That's a good 25 years (give or take) of pictures of my family growing up, many of them I have never seen before.  I haven't been through all of them yet, but I had to share some favorites.  First, was an observation I made... there seems to be a certain theme among the pictures that were taken, can you see what I am referring to?

So I started to notice that there were all these pictures of my siblings with really cool cars.  I began to wonder, "Are there any pictures of me with a really cool car?"  And this is what I found:  me, with a station wagon.  Come on!  You can see that even at the time of the picture I was pretty offended by this!  (By the way Carrie, notice anyone you know in that picture?) 

Here were a few more of my favorites.  I absolutely love this one of Mom.  I enjoyed seeing pictures of Mom in the same stage of life as I am now.  There is something about the look on her face, and the informality of this picture that I just love!

Mom riding the waves!!!

This is so RaeAnne!  

I just thought this was a classic...

... as well as this one...

I love this picture for many reasons, but largely because I am just grateful to be a part of it!  

Derby Time!

We pulled up to the parking lot, our hearts  pounding, nerves strung tight.  The sky was overcast, rain clouds hovering low.  Was it a sign of things to come?  We all walked into the building feeling anxious.  How would we be feeling when we left the building that night?  Happy?  Relieved?  Depressed?  Preparations had been made, we had done all that we could.  For better or worse, the moment had come for... the Pinewood Derby!!!

Because Steve is the Den Leader, he was in charge of setting up the track.  That was good for us because then he could "fix it" in our favor.  (Just kidding...)

Here they are testing it out (with last year's car) to make sure

 it was in good working order.  

The boys were pretty hyped up for the big race as you can tell.  I know that surprises many of you, as my children are generally very calm and docile.

Spencer's car...

Tyler's car...

Nothing like dueling brothers at the Pinewood Derby!  I was proud of both of them, they were good sports.

Here they are waiting for the results of their race against each other.  Both cars were very fast, but Tyler did pull it out by a hair...

Here are a few "photo finishes"...

Well, all-in-all we did okay.  Tyler came out with second place, and Spencer with third.  And all of the cub scouts had wins!

So, how did we feel as we left the church that night?  I think this sums it up...

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!

Lessons learned the hard way!

So, last Saturday I sat down at the computer and nothing would work.  The computer wouldn't respond, all frozen up.  We tried all of our usual tricks when this happens, but nothing!  I began to get a little worried when the whole day passed and still the computer refused to work.  Steve took the computer into the store he bought it from on Monday, and much to our dismay, the problem was a crashed hard drive!  I cannot tell you how sick to my stomach this made me!  Had we backed up all of our pictures? .... No, though we had talked about it a month or so ago.  Yes, we are lame!!!   We got our computer back yesterday along with the faulty hard drive, and now we start the process of trying to retrieve three years of pictures and videos.  I am sure all of you smart people out there backup your pictures, but just in case you haven't recently, maybe today is a good day to do it!