About a month or so ago, I was digging through some old photos when I found an abundance of film strips. You know the ones they used to give you when you got your photos printed? I looked at the negatives through the light and tried to recognize what I could from them. Some I had never seen before. Some I forgot ever existed. I decided to take them to a photo store to have them reprinted since I know they hadn't been touched for years (some of them over 20 years...there were photos of my birth in there! Yikes!) and I didn't want them just sitting in a box forever.
Looking through those pictures after picking them up really gave me a mix of emotions. It was so exciting to remember some of the things I'd forgotten through time, but in that way I was really sad too. In those moments, I was back in Italy, and my brother and sister were little again, and we still had my favorite dogs. Everything about that time was rosy and perfect, which is one reason I hesitate to ever return to where I grew up. I don't want to ruin my memories of that time, because it was the happiest times of my life.
Here are some of my favorite prints.
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| Me, Jayme, and Joe, Easter 2000 (maybe?). Our mom liked to match us... |
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| Joe and I. Yes, I was an ultra nerd. But I'm happy to say that my gap-toothed smile is no longer (as) gap-toothed. |
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| My beautiful sister. She was adorable and girly, but had a horrible temper. If you pushed her to her breaking point, she'd leave the room, and then come back a completely different and terrifying child. I love her. |
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| My original best friends. Love these babes. |
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| Jayme and her blue cake teeth. |
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| Don't know what the deal was with all these weird smiles. |
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| View from the front of our house. |
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| View from the back of the house. I miss those mountains so much. |
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| Joe playing a game of some sort right after moving in. |
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| I was a little bummed that some of these photos were so scratched, but it must have been the negatives. This was our kitchen. |
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| First snow in our new house in Italy. |
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| Misty and Lucy getting a taste of the snow. |
