2007 in 5 Minutes

Happy New Year! Now I just have to recover from our late night last night. Yes, Little Calvin did make it to midnight... barely, and then he conked out immediately afterward. The house was even shaking like World War 3 had just started, what with all the firework mortars going off on all sides of our house.

Now that it is New Year's Day, and I have the day off from work, I (of course) have a new project to work on, whose goal is two-fold: 1. Make sure all my video footage taken this last year is safe and preserved so I can burn it out to DVD, thus taking away the chance of accidentally erasing it. and 2. Once that footage is all together, I make a montage of our memories from the last year.

Now, after making a DVD of the last few years worth of these montages last year, some who saw them asked me why I do this... It's not like its a quickie project. It does take time to sort through a years worth of video footage and condense it down to five minutes. Especially when we have shot footage on 4 different cameras (in 3 different formats) and on two cell phones.. let alone sorting through all the photos to augment into the video, select music, create opening graphics, and label everything so that when we are old and gray with our memories gone we'll have some sort of clue of what we are looking at. So... just a little New Years Day project...

But as to why.... several reasons actually. First and foremost, it's fun for us to watch. In just 5 minutes we can watch our kids grow over the course of a year. We can see them participate in sports, have fun, and remember the fun times. It's a fast paced way to see what we have done. The second reason is a little deeper. In a world of negativity, where every day we have challenges, lots of things to do, jobs, responsibilities, stresses, etc. it can be difficult to remember the bigger picture of life. What I record is not like a reality show.. I'm not recording when my kids do something stupid and get it trouble. I am not recording the break downs, the temper tantrums, or the disagreements.

A show my wife and I like to watch on the cable network TLC, is "John and Kate Plus 8". If you ever think you have a hard time with your family and its challenges, just watch this show. The family has 2 6 year olds, and 6 3 year olds. It's just nuts. Only with this show, the cameras catch everything, Parents John and Kate do bicker and fight, and then have those quarrels broadcast to the country (to be fair, they seem to get along great and that aspect is also shown). If that were my life, I don't think I'd want THAT much shown.

What I am doing is recording the fun stuff (well, mostly... I do show Dawn's broken arm, but that was a biggie moment for the year). So when I go back now and look at 2007, or any of my previous years, its like just watching the blessings. As a church hymn says "Count Your Many Blessings", well this videos help me do just that.

So I don't show these to brag... or to say "Look at all the cool stuff we have done", I do them to remind myself of my great kids, my wonderful wife and the opportunities we have been given to learn, grow and improve ourselves each day. And what better day to drive that home than on New Years Day.

So for those that are interested... here's my 2007 recap... a quick look into the fun times of 2007. Here's to remembering the good times, and remembering the bigger picture, as we head into 2008!