Unexpected blog trip down memory lane

I had sat down with my meal plan, getting ready to work on the new one for the next two weeks, when I decided to come on my blog and take some inspiration from previous menus of years gone by.

One of the first posts I opened was a Happy Homemaker Monday from 2009, and quickly realized that the HHM picture was not working.  So, as a blogger what do you do?  You go and update that post and fix the problem.

As I scrolled down to the photo from the camera, it was one of my favorites of me and my baby Lola.  It made me miss her so so much.  Again, the photo was not working properly and I quickly realized that it was due to the fact that it was still uploaded on Photobucket.

Y'all.....when I started blogging back in 2006, Photobucket was the place to go, the best photo and graphic uploader site and so on.  That is until I found Flickr and never looked back, but I guess some of my photos are still from Photobucket.

I immediately went over to the site to try and download my photo and was firstly met with the realization that I couldn't remember my information, it has been at least 8 years or more since I've last logged in.

Did the whole recover password, check email, confirm email dance, and finally got in.

Oh my word, it was like a trip down memory lane through my early years of blogging.  The photo quality was horrendous, and I would cringe but I don't because it is a true representation of my blog's beginnings.

Would it be more visually appealing if the blog had pretty high quality photos from the get go?  Sure, but then it wouldn't be a progression of my blogging, my writing, my photography skills (if you can call them that, I'm merely a girl who loves her camera).

Almost immediately, I got a pop up asking me to subscribe for a year in order to keep using the Photobucket account, or then I would have to delete or download the photos.

It wasn't a hard choice, I knew I wanted all my photos downloaded and that is what I chose to do, not even understanding what my next hour and a half was going to consist of.  Thank goodness for home days and having nowhere to go....oh and a clean house that I didn't have to worry about either.

I tried and tried and no matter what I did, I could not get the option to download the full albums.  So, it came down to sitting for an hour and a half, opening one photo at a time and downloading to my computer.  Yeah....all 700 and something photos.  My word, how frustrating, but sooooooo wonderful too because it really was a huge trip down memory lane.

Now if you've been with me from the beginning, some of the photos I'm about to show you will no doubt bring back some memories for you too.

My library trips.  I have to say that Luke AFB had by far, one of the best libraries I have ever visited, well base libraries that is.  We loved going either on the weekends or, I would pop in during the week when the kids were at school.

I miss the library so much but our local base library is not that great, and neither is the town one.

My lemon tree.  I was obsessed with this tree and the gorgeous lemons.  I hadn't even realized how many photos of this tree I took, or of the individual lemons and the blossoms etc.  Really....OBSESSED!!!

My babies.....oh my heart hurts.  I wish I could go back in time to this age, I miss them being little.

Our girls.  It's hard to think that they are both gone.  I love them so much and they were a huge part of our family and our lives, we still miss them dearly.

This window sill.  I took SO many photos from this spot, through different seasons, different decorations, the windowsill was constantly changing but it gave me a wonderful view of my honeysuckle and the hummingbirds that came by to feed.

It was amazing going through all of these photos.  Oh there's many more but I won't bore you with all that, besides these are all on the blog, interspersed in posts.

But it brought back such a great feeling of nostalgia and it made me think back on where we've been, what we've done and how far we have come.

I can tell you that I never in a million years, imagined that I would be in Texas typing up this post, 6 years after Curt retired from the military.  All these photos were taken while we were still an active duty family, matter of fact 90% are taken on base.  It makes me miss those days!!!

Sometimes it's good to go back and look through old photos and I'm very thankful to myself, for keeping this blog going and for continuing to take photos, because I know that one day I will be typing up a post, years in the future, probably talking about my grandchildren.

It will be a blessing to have photos from the here and now to add to the photos of the kids growing up, and to be able to smile and fondly remember those days.

So if I don't encourage you in any other way, I do ask you to make time for memories, take photos, write down stories, keep your family story going.  You will be glad you did, in the future.