Grandma Carver's 87th Birthday

My grandmother, LuJean Hinchcliff Carver, turned 87 last month. I volunteered to make her a book that contained memories of her children and grandchildren. These kinds of things always tend to take a lot more time than you originally anticipate...this was no exception, but the end result was really neat. My aunts, uncles and cousins wrote such fun things and I was able to scrounge up enough pictures to make it visually interesting. I'm so glad that Suz and I spent the last six months organizing all of our Judd Family pictures--those pictures saved my butt with this project.

I created the book using the "Blurb" program. The books are easily put together. If I would have had half a brain I would have loaded all of my pictures into Picasa before I started so that I could have edited them as I went along--oh, well, live and learn. As it was, I loaded them and then realized that some of them had "problems" and then I had to pull them and make the fix in Photoshop and reload them. Not a horrible inconvenience, but not very efficient either. I hate that I work at a place that has made me so aware of inefficiency...good, but lame.

Someday...maybe in the next part of life I am going to make books for a living. After I create stuff like this I think that I really blew it by getting TWO degrees in Agriculture. WTH-- was I thinking?! Oh, well, I suppose that maybe someday I will need to identify a number of various internal parasites in order to win a million dollars...then I will be a rockstar!

Sheesh, my blood sugar must be low or something...let me save you from this drivel of regret by telling you that Grandma Carver LOVED her book. She wrote me the sweetest note and let me know that she "will hold these memories sacred forever." Isn't that wonderful? I feel so honored to be a part of her life.

Would you like to see the book?

Check it out here: Grandma's Book

Pictures from her birthday party:

My mom browsing through the memories with her mother.
Three generations. Me, My mom, and Grandma.

My Aunts: Susan Deans, Nancy Judd, Pat Madsen, Karma Bateman & their mother.

Grandma Carver and her children: Jim and Alan Carver added to the picture.
The Judd Family with Grandma.
The whole birthday party crowd. It is always so fun to see everyone. I wish that we could have had the whole day to visit in the sunshine. This will always be one of those special memories for me.