Looking Back

As part of Ron's father's day gift, I finally created a file of a whole bunch of our best pictures from the past 10 years or so for him to play on his electronic picture frame. Well, it was actually only about nine years with the exception of boating pictures, 'cause we didn't have a digital camera until about 2001. And, I say finally since I gave Ron the electronic picture frame for Christmas with the promise that I'd make a file as part of the gift. So, now, six months later he finally has his file.

It took me several hours just to pick out the pictures, then another hour sorting through the hundreds I copied into the folder. I deleted extraneous ones and ones that just didn't tell a story.

When Annalee asked me what I was up to I showed her some pictures and told her they were from before her and Zelda, when daddy and I had a different life. What I found most interesting was to click through the pictures in full-screen once they were all cleaned up. I had so many realizations; I thought I'd share them...

• Ron and I looked a lot younger 10 years ago. Less gray. Fewer wrinkles. More carefree.
• We had a lot of fun when it was just Ron and me. And, we've had a lot of fun when we were a family of three and now as a family of four.
• We have done a lot of traveling to a lot of really cool, really beautiful places.
• We have had a lot of laughs together, with family and with many wonderful friends.
  
• We have taken a lot of pictures of each girl doing the same thing, just three years apart.
• If you run all the pictures of just Annalee together, you see the same happy smile and many of the same poses, shot after shot. Same goes for Zelda. It's really pretty amazing when you see the pictures one after the other.
• Zelda looks a lot like Annalee did when she was younger. In fact, I did a double-take on a couple pictures trying to figure out which girl it was.

The biggest realization for me was the peace in knowing that in 45 short years, I have lived an amazing life (and that's just from looking at a decade of pictures and remembering the other 30 years). When I finished looking at the pictures, I gave thanks to God for this wonderful life. I felt a sense of contentment in knowing that if my life ends anytime soon, it's been a very full one.

Of course, at 45 I figure I'm only half way to 90, so I still have a long way to go. I have two girls to raise and a husband to grow old with. What a great life this is!