Yard Work, Photos

We spent quite a  bit of time in the yard on Saturday thatching, raking, cleaning up trash, cleaning out the shed, and sweeping off the walkways and patio. James took stuff to D.I. and I took a load of stuff to the dump, then went to IFA to get the year's fertilizer. I put the humate and round 1 of fertilizer down yesterday and we turned the sprinklers on to get in a good watering. We should have a green yard within the week! I always dread setting everything up, but it's usually not a big deal.

I got everything done with the photos that I intended to. It was a great source of frustration to do the Google Photos accounts for my parents. I had to keep verifying with a code every time I wanted to do something, and that was annoying. It also took a while to get everything uploaded, and I still don't have all of Mom's stuff since she's not tech savvy and I'm far away. I did share all of the old Phenix photos with both of them and created self-updating albums on my dad's account for each married sibling. There weren't as many photos of us as I'd hoped, but oh well. I've done my research on doing slides, and I think I'm going to go for it. I learned that the slide to digital converter also does negatives, but I don't know if I want to go there.

Pros:

1. Negatives make better quality pictures.

2. There may be pictures that I didn't have loose copies of or aren't in scrapbooks. (Unlikely, though. Most negatives were with stacks of pictures from the same time period.)

Cons:

1. Negatives tend to degrade over time, so I might go to a lot of work for nothing.

2. The color might be off, and I'd have to learn how to fix it.

3. They'd need to be cleaned off first.

4. They're fairly disorganized because I didn't think I'd use them for anything. (But they are all in one bag, more or less.)

5. I'd have to scan all of them that are on one strip and then delete the bad ones, which in my experience, is 80% of them. Having done all the digital photos, I don't think it would be worth the effort.

When I'm in NC in June, I'll get my dad's slides from his mission and convert them. Then, in July, I will get Rex's and do those. I'm pretty excited to see all the mission pictures from Argentina and Italy.

If the slides turn out well, maybe I will charge to do them for people in my ward. I dunno.

Busy, Photos

Honestly, I wasn't excited for this week at all. James had parent/teacher conferences, Kenny a doctor's appointment and eye appointment, Joseph an orthodontist appointment, and all of us stake conference. I know I shouldn't grumble about extra church meetings, but I was this weekend. I made a point to go to all 3 meetings, though, and I was both humbled and inspired by the messages given. I'm grateful that I've been able to do many good things with my time at home, and I know that my next step is to study Spanish in preparation for our trip to Ecuador.

But first, pictures. Here's a boring recap of what I've done thus far since I've now spent 155 hours on it for the Heads:

*Sorted loose photos and envelopes by month/year and scanned from 1954 - 2008 (2 huge boxes!)

*Scanned photos from older scrapbooks that weren't in the loose ones

*Uploaded all the scanned photos to Google Photos (mine, Melodie's)

*Consolidated 200 GB of stuff on a hard drive, sorted by month and year and uploaded those photos, mostly from 2008 - 2016, and backed up to her other hard drive

*Cleaned up Google Photos for Melodie from 2017 - present day

*Named faces on Google Photos

*Created self-updating albums for my family, Sam's family, and Anna (Melodie's account)

*Made a comprehensive Shutterfly book of James's childhood since such a scrapbook has never been in existence

*Made albums for future FHE's which include all 4 of our parents' childhoods and early marriage

*Made an album for James of historical sites and museums

*Made an album of the extended Head family and shared it to the FB group

What's next?

*Make note of which photos in the later albums (1988 and on) I didn't have loose pictures for. In July, I'll get the albums out and take pictures of them on my phone. I have books for 4/7 of these albums, so that helps a lot. I don't think there will be very many, but I don't want to miss anything important.

*Put Grandpa Head's book in order in a binder.

*Get my parents to download Google Photos and upload all their pictures to the accounts. Add those to my Phenix family album.

Maybe?

*Look into getting a device to convert slides to digital and do my dad's and Rex's photos (mostly from the mission, I believe).

Spring Break: Rexburg and D.C. Trip

We had an uneventful drive to Rexburg on Friday (the 29th). Saturday, we dyed eggs and did a hunt for plastic eggs filled with candy.  Jesse and I went to the Thai place for lunch with Melodie for our birthdays. We also enjoyed a "Jerusalem dinner" of gyro meat, bulgur pilaf, flatbread, olives, and grapes. I've been in NC some years for Easter, so I've missed that tradition. It's both delicious and fun.

Easter Sunday, we attended church and had a delicious dinner afterward, the usual. I contributed by making the funeral potatoes the night before and deviling the eggs Sunday morning. I was still feeling a bit sick, but I took a quick nap and felt better afterward. I still wasn't too sure about how I'd feel on the D.C. trip.

James and I left on Monday for our D.C. trip. We spent the day in Salt Lake getting lunch at a German deli, browsing IKEA and a few other stores, and trying Raising Cane's for dinner. Our flight didn't leave till 10:50 P.M., and we arrived in D.C. Tuesday morning around 9 with a layover in Boston. We'd been hoping for a little sleep, but I think we each got an hour. Luckily, there were movies to enjoy during the long (and short) flights.

Tuesday morning, we headed straight into D.C. on the metro. We carried only backpacks since we knew we'd be walking around all day with all of our belongings. We started with the Museum of Natural History, got sandwiches at Potbelly's, and did a part of the American History museum as well. By the time things closed, we were pretty exhausted and got on the metro to head to our hotel in Alexandria. We got pizza for dinner at &Pizza, then relaxed for a little bit and crashed for the night. I went to bed at 8 P.M. Eastern, which would be 6 P.M. Mountain, then slept for about 11 hours. Haha. I guess I was tired.

Wednesday, we got an early start but unfortunately got soaked in the rain. We started at the Museum of African American History and Culture and finished the American History museum before lunch at a Peruvian-Chinese-Japanese place downtown. I absolutely loved the fusion food. We went to both buildings of the art museum after lunch and then dragged our tired bodies to Chinatown for a delicious dinner. It was well worth the extra steps. At the hotel, we strategized for the next day since we found out we needed tickets for a couple of places.

Thursday, I watched like a hawk and snagged tickets for both Air & Space and the Library of Congress. We spent the morning at Air & Space, got lunch in Eastern Market, and then headed to the Capitol for a tour. It was absolutely gorgeous, as was the Library of Congress. We got a little lost in there! On the way to find dinner, we bumped into the outside part of the botanic gardens. It was Potbelly's again, but a couple of disinterested teens didn't give us the best service. Oh well.

Friday, we rented scooters and saw the monuments and memorials. After a delicious lunch at the Hamilton, we reluctantly headed to the airport to make the long journey home. I found some delicious Korean food in the Boston airport as my final "fun" meal of the journey. We got back to Salt Lake fairly late and finally got checked in to our hotel at midnight. Kenny turned 12 without us!

Saturday, we drove to Rexburg while listening to Conference, watched Conference with Lars and Emily, and watched even more Conference with eating breaks during and in between.

Sunday, we listened to all of Conference in the car as we headed home. It was a bummer to be in the car again, but we had a good trip and got things unpacked that night. AM radio didn't let us down, so we didn't miss anything either!

It's been an okay week so far. The trip was so amazingly fun that it's been hard to get back to "real life". Everyone is still slightly sick, but that awful illness is almost gone. I had all the stamina I needed to do a lot of stuff in D.C. We walked 80,000 steps from Monday - Friday!

I'm now working on the 3rd and final round of Head photos. They are from the second box and range from 2000 back to the 60's when my in-laws were kids. My plan is the scan all the photos back to 1988, then make James's photo book, then tackle all the photos (plus about 10 scrapbooks) from before then. I don't know how long this round will take, but I'd guess another 50 hours. There are more pictures than I thought, but that has been true the past few times too. James's family took a lot more pictures than my family ever did.

I know it's only Tuesday, but I'm going to publish this so I can work on the other blog on Thursday.