I’m slowly making progress with my project of digitally restoring old family photos. I love these old photos of my grandmother sitting in the chair and my great-aunt Margaret (at age 8) all dressed up in her fancy outfit. Both photos would have been taken in the 1890’s in the Chicago area.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
I’m on a mission to finish up my genealogy research and organize it in some meaningful way to pass on to future generations. There are so many aspects to this whole project that it seems overwhelming at times, and I get paralyzed with indecision over what to tackle next. I’ve researched the ancestors just about as far as I can go at this point, have a file cabinet, binders, and boxes filled with research, and have had my DNA done (twice), but I still have boxes and boxes of photos left to deal with.
I recently reorganized our front hallway dental cabinet so that the drawers are organized to make sense again. I use this chest to store and display family memorabilia from my husband and my childhoods and (mostly) from our parents’ and grandparents’ lives. I got the idea of putting this together from a newspaper article given to me by my friend, Kathryn, who spotted it and gave it to me, knowing my interest in genealogy and that I owned a similar cabinet. I’m sure I’ve mentioned more than once here that it belonged to my father who bought it used when he opened his dental practice in the late twenties. It was painted white when we acquired it, but we had it stripped to its natural mahogany. I think I should stop calling it a dental cabinet now- it’s our Family History Cabinet!
Here is a drawer with some items from my grandmother and great-grandmother. Both photos are of my grandmother, Marion Bean Badenoch, known to her grandchildren as Mimi.
My latest genealogy/photography project is to scan and restore some of my old family photos. I have hundreds, not counting those from my childhood and my children’s childhoods- so obviously, I am going to have to be very selective. I believe that the photo of Mimi in the oval frame was taken when she was sixteen (that’s what my mother told me, I think), but I’ve also considered that it could be her wedding portrait- it’s a pretty fancy dress! She went to finishing school in Boston, so it could have been taken around that time.
Here is the photo as scanned:
And here is the restored one:
Contrast alone makes a huge difference, and I attempted to eliminate most of the scratches and marks as well. I haven’t made a final decision about tone. The tutorials I’ve watched showed converting all the images to a plain black and white, but I think I prefer some brown in the tones to give a bit of a vintage look to them. Another decision to make!
I think my next photo restoration project will be the cute childhood image of Mimi sitting in the chair.
I’m back in Arizona and missing my little guys! The photo below is from the treasure hunt I set up for them last Saturday. Treasure hunts are a tradition in our family that started in my own childhood, when my father created a treasure hunt for one of my birthday parties. I continued the tradition with my own children and later on with my first graders as the culmination to a mapping unit every year. And now it’s Miles and Henry’s turn!
Miles is in second grade this year. He loves reading and science and math- just about everything involving learning. He loves school and is so confident and articulate- I couldn’t be more proud! Since we last saw him in May, he has shot up a couple inches and seems heavier too. What happened to the little premie who was late to do everything as a baby? He is excelling now! Here he is practicing piano before his lesson yesterday. 
Penny the puppy isn’t a puppy at first glance- she is also growing up. At six months old, she is almost as big as Callie, the older golden in the house- but her behavior is VERY puppyish. She is sweet, incredibly intelligent (can sit, down, heel etc. etc.); however she is full of spunk and energy and can be very naughty, especially when her daddy is not around. She is definitely keeping me on my toes!
I’m having fun at Yellowstone! I’ll be visiting here for over a week and spending most of my time babysitting Henry and Miles while my daughter and husband are on vacation in Alaska. Yesterday I spent the morning in preschool with Henry, which was a blast- especially because his mommy is the teacher!
At 4 1/2, Henry is one of the big kids at preschool this year. Here he is, happily stringing some beads before the rest of the kids arrived.
I’m looking back to the beginning of summer- and looking ahead to this weekend when I return to Wyoming to spend some precious time with my boys!
And I’ll even have a couple days to spend with my girl, who is having a birthday today! She is still the same smart, capable, fun-loving person she always has been- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAITY! I love you! ❤
Our very sweet and un-self conscious Henry loves to watch the bluebirds flying in and out of the birdhouse. When the birds tweet, he tweets back. It is difficult to keep a straight face while this is going on, and it is highly entertaining (at least for the humans- not so sure about the birds)!
Here is Henry enjoying watching the birds.
And here is his tweeting face!
Overwhelming cuteness!
When I saw that my daughter had a bouquet of peonies on her dining room table, I couldn’t resist carrying them over to the window for a quick still life shot. The house Caitlin and family live in is over 100 years old and is part of what used to be Fort Yellowstone. I love the old windows!
I used one of Kim Klassen’s presets (darklight) for the edit in Lightroom and then added textures in Photoshop. The peonies were actually hot pink, but I wanted more of a vintage look to go with the window.
I have recently been introduced to canva.com through Kim’s Studio group. What a fun and easy way to make collages! This was a quick layout done totally online (nothing to buy) of Henry smelling peonies outside his house.
My daughter and husband took a walk while we were at Yellowstone and came back with a snakeskin they had found. Despite being a little grossed out, I was fascinated with the textures and patterns and couldn’t resist taking a few photos.
Miles was fascinated as well.
I am hoping this is the last time I photograph anything related to snakes.
The star of the show this trip, was undoubtedly three month old Penny; she entertained us every moment she was awake (and sometimes while asleep). The puppy cuteness was overwhelming! Miles is her biggest fan; Henry is somewhat of a puppy himself, so he loves playing with her.
I struggled with taking photos of her, because, although she is generally well-behaved, she is a puppy, after all, and in constant motion. One evening after dinner, I looked out the window to see my son-in-law, Justin putting Penny through her paces out on the grass (the elk were off somewhere- yay!). The after sunset light was beautiful, and Penny will do anything Justin tells her to do- this was a perfect opportunity for some puppy portraits!
She’s a beauty, isn’t she?
We are back home as of 1:00 this morning. Our travel day began with our daughter discovering a flat tire on her wonderful new car just as we were starting the trip from Yellowstone to Bozeman to catch our flight to Phoenix. We transferred our luggage and the kids and ourselves to Justin’s huge truck, which is not Caitlin’s favorite vehicle to drive, and off we went. We got to the airport with time to spare, had a quick dinner, and then waited at the gate for the incoming flight from Phoenix to arrive so we could board. As we looked out the window we could see dust clouds across the tarmac and debris being lifted into the air and swirling around. The inbound flight couldn’t land, so was diverted to Missoula. Although we didn’t see rain or thunder and lightning, it was all around Bozeman. Justin’s roof rack on the vehicle he was driving blew off as he headed into Bozeman from Missoula, and Caitlin and the kids had rain and thunderstorms the whole way home. Finally, two hours late, the flight came in from Phoenix (via Missoula), and we had an uneventful flight to Phoenix (Mesa Airport). Lightning flashed around us on our long drive home, but no rain. Ahhh summer storms!
I seem to have taken around 2000 photos on our trip- lots to go through! My plan to upload photos to the iPad and post from there didn’t work out too well. I think the number of photos on my 64GB SD card might have overwhelmed the iPad, even though I was only selecting a couple each time, and I found uploading seldom worked. Now that I’m on my computer, I see that my owl photo doesn’t display correctly (you can see about a fourth of it!), although it looks fine on my iPhone and the iPad; I’ll fix that next.
I’ll be posting more photos over the next week or so. You can look forward to seeing an adorable puppy, more photos of two handsome boys, a baby owl, wildflowers, a bison, and who knows what else?
Yesterday, my father-in-law, like earlier generations in his family, was laid to rest at the old cemetery at the end of this dirt road, overlooking the tiny Kansas farm community where he grew up.
Family members and friends gathered to say a last good-bye to Corky, who always called this peaceful corner of the world HOME.
My husband’s father, affectionately known by all as Corky, passed away Thursday at age ninety. We had begun the drive to Kansas when we got the news, and are now continuing on to be with family and attend his funeral. We will remember his quiet, teasing way, infectious laugh, and natural charm- and he will be greatly missed.
Last week’s unexpected visit with our beautiful daughter gave me an unprecedented opportunity to take some portraits of this busy mom (without the beloved boys) using the Lensbaby with the Edge 80 optic. I asked her to look pensive and moody in these first two- and she cooperated.
And here she is with her gorgeous smile!
My husband had an unexpected hospital stay last week, and both our son and daughter decided to fly out and visit him in the hospital and be here when he came home. All is going well now, and we had the best time having both our kids home (can’t remember the last time that happened)!
Our daughter left her kids at home with their daddy, but she parented via Facetime. These shots are from yesterday’s homework session with Miles and a conversation with Henry.
We’re so grateful to have such wonderful adult kids!
melinda anderson photography 