One of the days last week when we were relaxing on Poipu beach I stumbled across an SD memory card buried in the sand. I guessed that it had fallen out of someone’s camera bag while they were on the beach. When we got back to the condo that night, Matt (my brother) put the card in his digital camera so that we could see if there were any pictures on it. There were pictures on it, and lots of them!
Browsing the pictures on the little screen on Matt’s camera, we able to determine that the card belonged to a family and had about a year’s worth of pictures including a little girl’s birthday, a wedding, and the birth of a baby boy (luckily, there were no pictures of the actual birth). Once we realized what we had, I decided I was going to make it my mission to return the card to the family that had lost it. It would have been pretty easy had their name or address been embedded somewhere, but all we had to solve the mystery was about 200 pictures of them, their friends and their family.
When we got back to San Diego I loaded the card into my computer and started going through the photos in detail looking for any clues that would help. The first thing we noticed was that, in one of the pictures of the family’s newborn son we could make out the ID badge of one of the nurses from the hospital. A quick Google of the hospital name told us that the hospital was in Lincoln, Nebraska. It would have been nice if we’d discovered they were from some small town somewhere, but Lincoln still has a population of 250K. Didn’t quite narrow it down as much as I had hoped.
There were a number of photos of a young girl’s birthday and we assumed that the girl must be the daughter of the camera owner given that she was in so many of the pictures. One of the pictures of her birthday cake revealed that her name was Addie. In another picture we found Addie’s name on what to looked to be the scoreboard of a minor league ballpark. The text on the scoreboard was a birthday message for Addie and included her last name. Now we were getting somewhere.
We had the final piece of puzzle when eagled-eyed Anna spotted the father’s name embroidered on a Christmas stocking in the background of one of the pictures. With his first and last name as well as city and state in hand we consulted the almighty Google and were pleasantly suprised to find the family’s phone number and address come back as the first hit (you should Google yourself sometime to see what personal information there is out there).
I dialed their number and spent a few minutes talking to the wife of the man we had Googled. The card was indeed theirs and, much like ourselves, they had spent Christmas in Kauai. She was quite grateful to hear that someone had taken the time to track them down. Mission Accomplished!
So, make sure you leave a file on memory cards with your name/address or at least leave enough clues on there that someone will be able to track you down if you lose it.
Brian and I spent Christmas in Kauai with the kids, Brian’s mom, brother, & Turtle. Our water babies were able to splash and play in the ocean every day of our visit and that is really why people brave the 5 hour flight out there, right? They also chased chickens, built sand castles, ate shave ice, drank from a coconut, slid down the pool slide, and were spoiled rotten by their grandma, aunt, & uncle (Laurel learned how to say “Matt”).
Brian and I had a blast, too. The ultimate experience came on our last afternoon on the beach. We went out with Matt & Turtle for one last snorkel when we spotted a sea turtle. Brian saw it first and popped up to say “Turtle! Turtle!” and Turtle said, “What?! “What?!” and Brian was all “No a SEA TURTLE!” We followed the big guy around for a few minutes when the sky opened up in a downpour. We dashed back to the beach and collected the kids and all of our stuff completely exhilarated and satisfied.
Check out the Flickr slideshow here:
And here’s the video that Brian put together last night:
Merry Christmas from Oscar & Laurel. Here they are exchanging their gifts to one another…
Laurel reaches out to Oscar and says “Hey Bro, how would you like this very special case of the common cold for Christmas?”
Being a present-loving four year old, Oscar quickly reaches up to accept Laurel’s gift of an upper respiratory infection and responds, “Thanks, Laurel! I’ll take your cold if you take some of my pink eye.”
Then they both roll around the floor laughing at their poor, pathetic parents who are now broke from their 5th doctor’s co-payment in four weeks.
We wish you a merry Christmas and a germ-free New Year!
Love,
Anna, Brian, Oscar, & Laurel
Here’s a very sweet video of Laurel that Brian took during our Murphys Thanksgiving. If you listen carefully you can hear her making a clicking sound to call the calves closer.
I’ve got a serious case of the holiday spirit. Between yesterday and today the gift shopping and decorating were tackled. I made my own wreath, #87. Thank you very much.
Speaking of the list, I’m realizing that number 78 is going to be near impossible to accomplish. Brian and I have been working hard to whittle down the people who we buy gifts for and have pretty successfully got people to stop buying gifts for us. The kids are another matter, of course. It is still great to shop for my kids and other little ones in my life. So those gifts aren’t going anywhere.
We have also entered the phase of life when there are a number of people who we shop for who are neither friends nor family. Are you doing this, too? The guy who cuts our grass, the kids’ teachers and babysitters, the newspaper delivery lady, and others are all in line for a little sumthin-sumthin. In my mind, these guys can truly use the gifts (we try to give practical stuff) and it makes me happy to help out. These kinds of gifts aren’t going anywhere so maybe I’ll have to pitch #78.
Want to see our tree & tree trimmer? He learned the word “fragile” today.
Oscar had his 4 year old check-up today and it was so much fun! He had his height, weight, hearing, vision checked along with a physical. He had to follow a bunch of instructions from both the nurse and doctor throughout the appointment and did so like a champ. It was adorable. His doc gave him his best appraisal of being “perfect”, which was music to our ears.
Here’s the 42 inch, 41 pound, 4 year old at Grammy & Poppy’s house. He’s eating the pumpkin pie that he helped to bake.
We borrowed a few episodes of The Muppet Show from the library. Don’t you love it when your kids enjoy the same stuff that you did back when you were little?
The 100 Things List continues to take center stage in my life. I can’t recommend enough that you make and share your own list. You’ll be surprised how things start happening. Here’s my story on #9 – Join a board of directors.
A friend of mine saw the list and asked if I’d join her as a member of the board of directors for Rolling Readers, a non-profit organization I worked for before Laurel was born. I attended my first meeting as a member of the board just yesterday and am so pleased to have this opportunity to assist a great agency as I gain some new professional experiences.
Rolling Readers helps economically disadvantaged and at-risk children in Southern California learn to love reading through weekly visits from read aloud volunteers and twice a year book giveaways. The book giveaway has reached more than 200,000 children. You can help me support great work of Rolling Readers by checking out our holiday fundraising activity.
I am selling holiday cards that feature original artwork by second graders from John Adams Elementary here in San Diego. The cards are printed on high-quality paper packaged neatly with matching envelopes. Inside the message reads: Wishing you all the best this Holiday Season and throughout the New Year. 15 cards for $15.
See’s Candy is also available. Choose from the Snowman Box, Milk Chocolate Foil Balls, Mini Holiday Fancy Box, and Peanut Brittle. Just $5 a box.
Please let me know if you’d like some cards and/or candy. Thanks for your support!
Happy Birthday to Oscar! We celebrated his first ever birthday party with friends (vs the family stuff we’ve done in the past) yesterday. We splurged on a party at an indoor playground where there was lots for the kids to do and staff to handle all of the party stuff (setting tables, cutting the cake, clean-up). We all had a wonderful time and enjoyed not only Oscar, but all of his friends at the party as well.
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