I didn’t expect to check off another item from my 50 by 50 bucket list so soon, but here we are!

Since Eric and Jake left for their long boys’ weekend on Thursday night, I’ve had a quiet house—and with that, the rare gift of time. I used it to finally tackle a project that’s been on my mind (and my list) for a while: finishing our family photo books for the past three years of travel.

Every family has a memory keeper, and I am proudly ours. I’ve loved taking pictures since I got my first camera in my early teens. Back then it was film and photo labs—now it’s thousands of digital photos on my phone, hard drives, cloud backups, and a handful of old thumb drives I still can’t part with. While I’ve mostly traded my old SLR camera for the convenience of my phone, I’m constantly snapping photos—and incredibly grateful for how good phone cameras have become.

For years, we’ve been blogging our big family road trips and vacations. And for years, I’ve been turning both the blog and the photos into printed photo books—a tradition I love. But as I was making my 50 by 50 list, I realized I’d fallen three years behind.

So, with no distractions, I hunkered down. After two full days and many, many hours, the photo books are DONE and ordered. Our 2023, 2024, and 2025 adventures—to London/Paris, Germany/Amsterdam, and Italy/Malta—are now beautifully documented and preserved in photo books we can flip through for years to come.

This is #2 crossed off the list, and while it didn’t involve jumping out of a plane or learning a new skill, it’s one that means a lot to me.

One memory-filled milestone down… 48 to go. On to the next!