Wednesday, February 20, 2008

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.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh, that is awesome. i love seeing you guys through the years...i'll dig up some of mine, but i'll have to scan before digital!

Drew Carey Show said...

OOOH! I just had so much fun taking in your visual history and WHAMMO! -- a photo tag! GAME ON! (Although I think I'm going to have to actually go so far as to scan some pictures because we go back to 1997... yikes!) It was great looking in at you two. You're so much fun!

mama becca said...

Fun!
We'll try... may have to use a scanner for when we were too poor to have a computer...
LOVE your incomplete history. so entertaining!

Mollie said...

You guys look so happy.. from what I've seen of Ted in pictures I imagine you never go long without laughing... =)

I'm so envious!

<3 Mollie

Tara said...

This was the most entertaining post EVER!! I laughed out loud for a long time at the "Captain Q-tip and Frau Furball" pic....yep. I'm still laughing.

graceling said...

Lori- LOVE IT! You just made my day. "The T-shirt that won me over"!

Jana said...

i TOTALLY had a black wolf t-shirt in early high school. except the wolf face was not splayed across the whole shirt. i wore it through my sophomore year. how did i have friends?

Nicholas said...

This is just wonderfully funny! I'm cracking up at the last picture, but they're all great!

What a wonderful adventurous life you two have had thus far!!! Love it!

Lori- NH

Stacie said...

I LOVED all of that - the wolf shirt, the Christmas cards - Ted's expressions, all of it! You guys are now my favorite couple.

I'm excited to do ours - although it might take me a while (big bday party this weekend). And, it will not be as much fun as yours! :)

Lizard said...

LOVE the pics! That wolf t-shirt is something special. : )

nell ann said...

It was so great and fun to see another wacky couple! I love fellow wacky couples!! Do another one...

: )

Farmboy and Buttercup said...

OK, I am at work and there are no clients to see, boring... Thanks so much for giving me such pure entertainment. The Christmas photos -- what a treat.

Sharon

Dan, Misty & Ashar said...

That was stinking hilarious! I love all of your crazy photo ops. We are SO totally boring with pictures. Hopefully a kiddo will spice that up a bit. We had to have special pics taken for our dossier because we had none, and I guarantee they weren't wacky! Nice post!!

Erica said...

Oh how fun!! I loved it!

Anonymous said...

That was absolutely great!