An Incomplete History

I was just going through our hundreds of photos from the last four years and discovered a photo of Abe at age one month in our photos from the summer. I kept going and discovered him scattered about in seemingly random places. I quickly realized that as we've been importing photos of Abe sent to us from Gladney or other families, iPhoto puts them in our photo library according to the date the photo was taken, not when we imported it. It's made for interesting viewing, to see baby A at certain ages, getting bigger as we've gone on with our lives over here waiting for him. It's especially strange to see his photos from before we knew about him. There are a couple of photos of itty-bitty Abe taken while Ted and I were in Italy, right around the time our dossier was being sent off to Ethiopia. While we were waiting for our referral, I tried so hard not to think about where our potential child might be, afraid it would drive me crazy. Now, thanks to the wonders of technology, I can see exactly what we were doing as photos were being taken of him every month or so, before we even knew about him.

That's a strange and lovely thing.

As I was going through our photo library, I realized that there are a lot of off-kilter pictures of me and Ted on our computer. So I present to you:

An Incomplete and Sort of Random History of Ted and Lori

Summer 2003, Kosice-Barca, Slovakia. One of the first photos of us, taken at a friend's house:

August 2003, Kosice, Slovakia. This was at my friend Barbara's wedding. We were hot, tan, and most likely slightly tipsy. It was a Slovak wedding, after-all:

New Year's Day 2004, Los Angeles. We'd been engaged for one week. The t-shirt was what won me over:

February 2004, the Swiss Alps. Our first Christmas card photo, the infamous "Captain Q-tip and Frau Furball" greeting. We nearly died several times right after this photo was taken, attempting to sled down a mountain. I was very very afraid:

February 2004, Heidelburg, Germany. I've always thought this photo looks like we're ice-skating. We had turned to look at someone. I found my wedding dress on this trip while visiting Ted's friend Baui:

Spring 2004, Keidrich, Germany. We visited Ted's brother and his family during Fasching, and since we didn't have costumes, we dressed in each other's clothes. Ted's boobs are definitely a lot bigger than mine:

July 2004, Oregon Coast. Oh wait, that's not me. It's my hussy Granny at the beach, sitting on my fiance's lap:

July 2004, Portland, Oregon. I was serenaded at the karaoke bar two days before our wedding.

July 24, 2004, Portland, Oregon. The headline of the Oregonian said that day: A Sweltering 103 degrees! That's basically the only thing people say about our wedding, "Man it was hot!"

Fall 2004, Los Angeles, California. Ted's home after another long day at work:

Halloween 2004, Los Angeles. We went all out that year but only got a handful of trick-or-treaters. Were they scared of us or something?:

Summer 2005, Clarksdale, Mississippi. This was our second Christmas photo. It made some of my family think we were making fun of the South, which we weren't.

Summer 2006, Portland, Oregon. We like our front porch, and Squinty is wearing her "half full" shirt again:

January 2007, Portland. We spend an exciting Friday evening doing this after discovering Photobooth on our new mac:

I now challenge others out there to come up with their own Incomplete Histories. I'll go so far as to "tag" a few: the Spells, Kevin and Stacie, Drew and Carey, the Albertsons, the Raleighs, and anyone else so inclined.