Creating and Preserving Memories

We are back from our Spring Break trip to visit my family in Northern California. It was definitely a trip full of emotions, with a few rough days. Most people think of Spring Break, and partying comes to mind. Not for us. This year's break was all about my family and getting a few things back in order.

One of the biggest things was packing up some of my grandmother's belongings. She passed nearly 7 years ago. Since her passing my grandfather hasn't really gotten rid of much of her things. Now that he is moving, he won't have as much space to hold a lot of their older possessions. Included in those things were hundreds of photos and photo related mementos ranging from over 50 years ago to roughly 2005, including graduation and wedding photos, diplomas, and war letters from WWII.

My grandmother took pictures of everything and saved them all. For a long time she was organizing them all and storing them chronologically. In total, I have years upon years of our family memories. So in efforts to share these pictures with everyone in the family, and have some form of them forever, I am starting a project.

I am not going to completely detail the entire project, but it is something I am going to be spending the rest of the year working on. I am looking through several archival techniques and ideas to get some sort of direction. I am also thinking of ways to incorporate the family history from the Lopez Traditions book in with all these things.