At Hannah's graduation party, we watched some home movies of her when she was younger. We enjoyed watching them, so much so it got me thinking.
Did I even know where all my home movies were located, especially after the move?
I knew I had plenty of video of Gogurt - he's the first born - they always have more pictures and videos, right? (and I know this because I am a second born, first picture of me is my high school graduation photo. Nah, just kidding!)
I also knew that Gogurt's home videos were on VHS. And yes, we still have and use our VCR. So I felt confident that at any time the mood struck me I could pop in a tape and watch my son being born (not the actual birth, of course, just the before and after).
It was Poptart - my second born - that I was concerned about. In fact, I became somewhat obsessed with the notion that my daughter would grow up without any video she could just "pop" in and watch. What would that do to her emotional wellbeing? It would scar her forever and ever I just know it.
The story is somewhat complicated, but I know you are interested so I will tell you.
We had a nice-for-the time video camera when Poptart was born. Sometime after her 1st birthday party, the camera decided to hold our tape hostage. It wouldn't pop the tape out. Panic. My child's entire 1st year was on that tape. (A year on one tape, I didn't video my second-born much). Brad finally got the tape out of the video camera but in the process had to practically destroy the camera.
Whew. At least I had the tape safe and sound.
When we bought our new video camera, it would not play back the tape. Which meant we had a tape of Poptart's first year, but we could not watch it in any form or fashion. So we just kept the tape.
So when my obsession began about getting all my home videos in a "watchable" format, my mind immediately went to that specific tape and how we just had to get it transferred somehow.
Brad went to Best Buy and bought software to transfer VHS tapes to DVD. It was a little expensive but when compared to how much we would pay for a professional to transfer all our tapes, it was considerably cheaper to do it ourselves.
He spent several nights transferring our old home movies to his laptop then from his laptop to a DVD. It was a very satisfying feeling to know these memories would be preserved.
But there was still that one tape.
I looked up and found a "video man" in our town. I called him, took him the tape, and within 2 hours he had a DVD for me. Yay!
I made the 15 minute drive to his office and when he popped it in, I immediately noticed he had left off the 'h' at the end of my daughter's name. He felt horrible, volunteered to do it all over again for me, but I was desperate to watch it so I told him it would be okay, no big deal. He knocked off over $5 dollars of the cost he had originally quoted me. (If you are in the Brandon area and need any videos transferred, Ted at Video Images will be glad to help you....)
We came home and after I finished my typing and fed the clan dinner, we sat down to watch it. I had not seen that footage in at least 5 years, and to say it was sweet wouldn't even come close to describing it. Seeing Poptart and the rest of our family in the hospital when she was born, those images of her crawling, learning to walk, and belly-laughing at her silly brother, well, those images are priceless to me.
Now that this little project is over and all of our home videos are on organized, labeled DVDs, I can sleep better at night. Seriously.
Speaking of sleep, I dreamed I had a baby last night. Yikes!
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