Great Grandparent Book

A photo book with text to introduce our six and seven year old grandsons to our parents

“Do I have any great grandparents living?” was a question my then six-year-old grandson asked when we were coloring together after Christmas. The answer was no. Not on his mother’s or father’s side. I explained that Papa and I had great grandparents as part of our lives when we were growing up.

His question prompted me to introduce our grand boys to our parents. It took a few months, but I finally put my shoulder to the wheel and got it done. It was one of the most difficult projects I’d taken on in a while.

I planned to do a Snapfish photo book, like the ones I do of them every six months. As I pulled photos from our photo archive located in our lower level hobby room, I realized how difficult this was going to be—finding just the right photo of my parents to tell their story. And so many photos I wanted to share.

I decided an 8-1/2 x 11 format would be better, spiral bound. So I started with that, laying in numerous photos, adding many of the boys in Florida. Hubby was doing the same for his parents.

But it didn’t seem right, so I went back to my original idea. This book is for a six and seven year old. They’ll want pictures and little text. I went back to my Snapfish idea and started the book, and then realized some of my photos were “low resolution.” Although these have worked in the past, I wanted these photos to be the best they could be. I spent the afternoon running downstairs and back upstairs looking for the photos I had scanned years ago to rescan at 600 dpi.

Five hours later I was almost done. We wanted to end the book with a picture my husband had taken in March of our son, daughter-in-law and the two boys on the Anna Maria Island beach at sunset. He sent it over to me from his iPhone, and although we were only inches apart, it took hours for the photo to arrive. Consequently, it was Monday morning before I finished the book and sent it off to be printed.

On the last page I wanted a photo of our son’s family and I added the caption that we are so happy the boys are the fifth generation of our family to vacation on Anna Maria Island. They visit us there every year and since it coincides with my older grandson’s birthday, we host a mini family reunion. Many relatives are in Florida in March, so we consistently have twenty-five to thirty people showing up for his birthday/family potluck gathering. I’m so thankful we rent a large house with a large deck, and the dolphins are willing to entertain our guests.

The book has a block on the very back cover for a photo, but instead I put a quote by Janet Hvorka:

“When people are grounded in where they have come from … it strengthens them and empowers them.”

In the corner of the back over is the embellishment: Grandparents fill the world with love.

Next project is to get our daughter-in-law’s parents to do their side of the family.