Limericks, Guinness and an Unexpected Pregnancy: A favorite album
The year was 2005. My husband and I, along with 3 of my in-laws (father, mother and sister) had planned a trip to the Emerald Isle in the hopes of experiencing a little bit of our heritage and the beauty of a country I’ve heard about my whole life.
We were leaving on a Friday and I was pretty much packed and ready to go. We’d bought our first digital camera for this trip and I couldn’t wait to try it out. At the time, I was doing some consulting work and had to participate in a training session the day before we left. That morning before my session, I’d been feeling a little off, and I figured that I better check something out before we left, so I took a test. Yep, that kind of test. I was pregnant.
We were thrilled in the sense that we had been praying for this little bundle of joy for quite a while, but really?!? The day before we were leaving on a trip to the land of Guinness…the land of Bailey’s…the land of Jameson…the land of the pub?! But life happens the way it’s supposed to, so off we went.
The trip was amazing. We visited Killarney, we kissed the Blarney Stone, we visited the local pubs (this could have been more fun for me…just kidding/not kidding) and went into a million beautiful old buildings. I was a little ‘green’ at times (the morning sickness kicked in), but in general, I was so grateful to get to experience this country and the beauty of its land and its people.
When we got home, I actually made a real paper scrapbook of this trip. I’m not a great “traditional” paper scrapbooker. Give me a computer and I will create a gorgeous album for you, but paper…not my gift. However, in 2005, digital albums were just entering our world and quite honestly, I didn’t even know how to get the pics off of our spankin’ new digital camera, so paper it was. Here are 3 things that I now LOVE about this album:
I took the time to write down what we did each day in a journal and included it in the album, so 14 years later I can completely relive this trip, which really was the trip of a lifetime. I’ll likely never travel to Ireland again with my in-laws, and I DEFINITELY will never go to Ireland pregnant again!
Because of our lack of digital knowledge at the time, we lost all of the digital photos from that trip. Ouch! If I wouldn’t have made this album, the pictures would probably be gone and lost forever. That hurts my heart.
I can scan this album and have a digital copy not only for backup, but to be able to enjoy these memories in a whole new way on my computer, tv, phone or any other screen.
It’s funny to think back on those first days of digital pictures. We knew so little about how to manage this new photo world. 14 years later, we are still learning, but we know a lot…
we know how important backups are;
we know that keeping all of our photos in one place (our digital hub), is the best way to manage them; and,
we know that if we want to preserve our printed photos, albums and scrapbooks long-term and for future generations, scanning is the way to go.
This is a fun story for our daughter, who is now almost 13 years old. She loves telling people she’s been to Ireland and that we called her Seamus her first 7.5 months of existence. And thankfully, we have the documentation to prove it.
P.S. My husband and father-in-law entered our tour guide’s limerick contest, what do you think?
