Kittens in the 70s

I received a new scanner from my parents for Christmas and I have already been scanning all of the old family photos like a mad woman. There will be plenty of gems that I am going to post here over the next few weeks, but for now, feast your eyes on these adorable kittens that my mom's family must have owned in the 1970s. Kitteny goodness.

My Mom

I love my mom, and I love pictures of my mom when she was a kid. For no reason in particular, I'm going to share one of her and my uncle and my grandmother. The best part is the expression on my mom's face. So skeptical. So hilarious.

Babies and other adventures, pt.1

So I have been fortunate enough to spend some quality time with my brother, his wife, and my niece and nephew lately. They live out in LA so getting to see them a lot is a bit rare, but two visits in one month! Crazy! So I was out there in LA for labor day, and we had a great time, spent 12 hours at Disneyland, played on playgrounds. You know. The usual. I also got to spend some time with my good friend Elyse who is out there getting her masters for being a totally rad animator. I went to the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory with her and her family and that was a ton of fun. Please note on that Hollywood sign shot that there is a helicopter circling as someone was in the middle of getting arrested for sitting on the "O".

Starting the Archiving Process

So last thanksgiving my mom and I discovered a box at my grandmother's house full of photos and papers my great grandmother, Carrie, had saved. This women was intense about keeping things, and she even had the thank you card my dad sent her for his high school graduation gift in 1971! (This is my mom's family, but my mom and dad were dating back in high school. I love that she thought to keep the thank you card from her granddaughter's high school boyfriend.)

Anyways, the photos are great, but were just hanging out in a big box, so they have been damaged throughout the years, and I'm trying to scan them all in and do some digital touching up. I've already organized them in an album (that was my Christmas gift to my mom), but now comes the time consuming part. These need a ton of cleaning up and cropping, but here's a glimpse into the photographic awesomeness:

[That's my grandfather in the middle, rocking out in 1947]

[1947 - check out that bike!]

[My great grandmother, Carrie Jones, in 1924, age 14. It's tiny, but she has a adorable sparkly bird pin on her scarf.]

Roots

I've been working on compiling a family tree. Recently I found a copy of a book that my great grandmother, Carrie, filled out about 15 years ago, before her death, that prompted her with lots of questions about her life, and which has served as a window into the life of a really amazing woman. In one of the pages, she filled in a family tree going back to her great grandparents, and it totally fascinated me.

[my maternal great grandparents with my mom, 1953-1954]

So now, I'm making an effort to track down more information. There is something very basic about needing to know where you come from. I feel like technology is going to make it easy for our generation to be "remembered" through photographs and digitized information. It makes me sad that already so much information about my relatives has been lost, their birthdates, their birthplaces, the names of their siblings.

[my mom, and my grandma]

The next step, obviously, will be deciding how to display and catalog this information, and I'm struggling with a workable design for a family tree. This is about to sound very cheesy, but I've been Harry Pottering lately, and I wish I could have a huge tapestry filled with all the faces and names of my relatives, reaching out and covering an entire wall. I really do love the idea of that.

Welcome to the world little Ethan!

We've got a new kid in the family! Last night my newest little nephew was born! His name is Ethan and he is just adorable. In this photo he is only hours old, cute lil guy. [These were taken with a camera phone so don't mind the fuzziness. To be sure it doesn't detract from the cuteness!]

Here he is hanging out with his big sis.

Digging deep

I love finding out things about my family that I never knew. For the last few years I've been trying to collect some information on my great grandpa, a civil engineer who led a lot of cave excavations right outside of Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s. I never knew him, but finding him mentioned in books and his photo on the internet from time to time makes me pretty happy.

[Ralph "Buzz" Bossart (far left) and the Laurel Caverns Crew, around 1961]

I have the most adorable niece ever.

I just had to share this photo of my niece. She is just the cutest, silliest girl! What a priceless facial expression. haha