My 200th Post - How it all began...

My introduction for this post is at the 'end' of this post. I don't know how to put the pictures 'after' my post. So you'll have to read at the end. There are a lot of photos. I could have formatted them into postcards but I like seeing the 'entire' picture. Mostly this post is for me to reminisce. :o)

Just a little 'add on' to this post...I wonder if any of my children will see any resemblance from these pictures to who their children might look like, hmmm....

L to R - Gayle, Geoffrey, Diana, Douglas (I am about 13)
My mother and I (about age 17) cleaning up the patio. My mother loved her patio!


My twin brother Gayle and I (Diana) about 2 years old.

Diana, day of high school graduation, May 23, 1968. (Age 17)

My mother Jane and I (about 18 months.) We are at White Sands National. Monument. They have lots of natural sand dunes.

Diana - just over 1 year.

L to R - My mother Jane, Diana, Douglas, Gayle, Geoffrey. My doll Hephzibah. (I am about 10 years old.)

Christmas 1960. Diana, 10 years old. My wonderful teddy bear 'Cookie'. I still have him and he's 50 years old this Christmas 2010!

This is my mother Jane, about 26 years old. She's gorgeous! That painting on the wall, she called him Butch'. I don't know what happened to that painting. When she died and we sold the house, I don't know where that painting ended up.

This is my father's dad, Alva Bertram Bates. He's in his age 40's in this picture. He died at age 52. I think my twin brother Gayle looks so much like him. I also think Gayle's son Jonathan looks a lot like him too! :o)

This is my brother Geoffrey at age 2. He's such a cute baby boy!

This is my mother Jane and Diana (I am about 13 or 14). My mom made her dress and my skirt and top.

This is my dad J. Douglas Bates.

L to R - Diana (waving), my friend Bobby Yerby, my mother Jane and my twin brother Gayle. (Gayle and I are about 15)

I wrote a story about this picture when we would go to Cloudcroft, N.M. to cut our Christmas tree each year I was growing up. This is the Mitchell's home. They lived in the mountains.

Diana - age 8 1/2

Twins-Gayle and Diana - about 5 1/2 years old. We got those shirts for Christmas.

Diana - 7 1/2 months old.

This is my father J. Douglas Bates when he's about 4. He is with his Aunt Edna Jones Townsend. The boys wore dresses until they were 5. I like that trike he is on. Notice the metal wheels, no rubber.

My dad and I at Easter. I am 5 1/2. Notice the stacked adobes behind us. They are for the patio he will build at the end of the house.

My brother Douglas and I (age 13, I turned 14 two months later) with two Siamese kittens, Jasmin and Omar. We raised Siamese kittens for a short time. They got sick so easily. They were hard to raise.

This is my father Douglas Bates at about age 14, I think.

This is my mother Jane. She loved to sew and sewed all her outfits. She is about age 75 in this picture.

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April 7, 2007 was my first post to my new blog. I had to have a name for my blog. Hmm, decisions, decisions. What would I call my blog? It took about two minutes to decide! I love being a grandmother. I would call my blog 'Grandma's Cookie Jar'! Grandmas and cookies go together like peanut butter and jelly! :o) My very first post was about Kirsten's birthday.

Two weeks later I went down to Utah to attend BYU Women's Conference with my two daughters Michelle and Julie. Julie and I attended a class on 'Family Reunions.' They had 2 speakers. The first lady spoke about 'Blogging' and how that avenue kept her close to her grandchildren since they lived throughout the United States. I felt so pleased because I had just created a blog, with the help of Michelle, two weeks earlier. The speaker spoke about writing stories about her childhood for her grandchildren to read. I suddenly realized that for my oldest daughter Michelle I am her childrens only surviving grandmother! I also realized that none of my grandchildren hardly knew anything about my childhood and that I should 'blog' some stories for them.

I spent the next year posting stories about my childhood for my grandchildren to read. Christmas 2009 I published those stories in a softback book for each of my children so they would have a history of those stories.

I have been contemplating what I should write for my 200th post. I thought back on how I got started, as I stated above, and the more I pondered on it I kept thinking back not only on a panorama of my childhood but I kept thinking about my parents who are deceased. I really miss them. My father died November 27, 1982 and my mother died March 27, 1994.

I've decided to post a collage of pictures in memory of my parents. I'm not going to put them in chronological order. I spent time scanning all these photos. Unfortunately I do not have Photo Shop on my laptop and haven't figured out how to transfer it form our office computer to my lap top. The quality of these photos have scratches, etc. on them from being store in loose form in boxes that my mother had stored them and then from my storing them. I realize now I need to ACT and get all those photos moved into albums so the don't have further damage. I also need to scan them all into my computer.