I have done it, I'm moving the site to Wordpress. I still have a few kinks to work out, but to visit the new location click here: http://melodygibbons.wordpress.com.

I will not be making any new posts at this site and eventually this url will be mothballed. Give me about a year to update the posts at the new site, heh.

Ok, as of right now, that isn't working. Ultimately, the new url will be http://notesfromthemelodymaker.com and eventually it will take you to a nice pretty site. 10:20 p.m. and that isn't happening. Check back tomorrow.

7:30 a.m. it is working.  Please visit http://notesfromthemelodymaker.com to continue the journey.

Nine years together! We celebrated by going to Las Vegas....by ourselves! Gramma and Papa came over and stayed with Melody and we visited the fabulous shows and sights of Sin City. We finally saw Love, the Beatles tribute show by Cirque du Soliel, which I have been wanting to see since Melody was born. It was truly amazing! The visual and aural spectacle is beyond what I expected and really does celebrate the magic of their music - especially considering they were really only making music for 7 years. That music has endured and finds new fans still today.

Next we saw the Titanic Artifact Exhibit - a collection of items recovered from the wreck site at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. The exhibit also includes much historical information and even a corridor built to look and sound like the second class section of the ship. Most impressive is a recreation of the grand staircase, which was made famous in the movie, but which was popular in its own right in 1912. The exhibit is moving, sad, and tastefully presented.

Last but not least, we saw Absinthe - a show that we thought was going to be a magic/burlesque type show, but which turned out to be a comedy/acrobatics/burlesque show. Amazing feats of physical strength, arial dancing & acrobatics, and a funny story made for an interesting evening.

One thing I remembered about Vegas....everything smells like cigarette smoke and it takes forever to get there and to come home. But otherwise, we had a wonderful trip!

Hey folks! I am planning on moving this blog "sometime" soon. This was supposed to have been moved in June, but I ran into a snag. The host I want to use moving forward does not have a gallery option that I like very much. So, since most of the people who read this on a regular basis are friends & family, I want to know if you feel like I need to have a photo gallery moving forward. 

Or, would you be satisfied seeing photos within the individual posts and leave it at that?

Having no gallery page will simplify my life significantly. Wordpress.com, which is what I use for Gram's Recipe Box, Who Were They? and Past Periods Press has a Flickr plug-in, meaning I can post pictures to Flickr (which I hate, btw) and they will show up in the little 3-image sidebar that you would then click to view more. That is one solution to the gallery, but it would be on a separate site. Wordpress also has a feature in which I can add a little gallery of images directly into a post and you remain on the site to view it.

Next, to move this site will be a big task because I have 5 1/2 years worth of posts, lots of them with photos embedded. I can A. begin blogging at a new location and then transfer the history over time, or B. transfer everything and then start blogging at the new location. Either way, the history will be available until the new site is completed and this one turned off. 

Does anyone have an opinion on what works best for them? Let me know.

And yes, I will be printing my old blog posts for posterity's sake. I'm looking into a book service via blurb.com or viovio.com, both excellent sites. Mom, Auntie, if you are interested we can talk offline.

I have often thought about how important car seats are for keeping kids safe in the crazy traffic here in Southern California. There are all sorts of laws in place today mandating the use of carseats and Consumer Reports tests them annually to find the safest ones on the market. But there was a time when a car seat was a novelty, and not designed for safety at all. Originally they were designed just to keep kids in place - the earliest child restraint was a bag that tied the child to the seat back!

Not until 1978 Tennessee become the first state in the nation to implement car seat laws for children (go Vols!). If you ever wondered what an early car seat looked like, I found this great photo in an antique shop, dated 1950. Wow!