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!

I don't know how I came to have this photo of Auntie Kat (on the left) and me (on the right) from Halloween 1973. We don't have a lot of photos from Halloween's past that I am aware of. It just wasn't something we made the time for, I guess. It's surprising really, when you consider we have pictures of roasted turkeys and dinner tables going back into time out of mind, haha.

Here's Melody at about the same age as me in the picture above, ready to tackle the neighborhood and collect her candy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, FROM 1973, 2012 AND ONWARD!

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!

I've been to a few more historical events recently, so I thought I'd put together some more vintage looking photos for your enjoyment. Ok, really I enjoy making them, so it was for my enjoyment. But you are always welcome to bask in my amazingness. You're welcome.

Our young Logan Bingham is in this photo, taking his first shot in battle

I made this faux cabinet card for a friend

This one is a photographic study of photos. Click on this one to go to the gallery and see all the new stuff I added.