Marmy's Scrapbooks

my momma (who shares our house with us) keeps a cedar chest full of fun treasures of the past.

like her childhood scrapbook.

documenting the awkward junior high years:

i had a little helper as i perused the old albums.

vintage greeting cards are the BEST.

and even childish sentiments seem sweeter in the 50s: "for a fine sister."

up to 9th grade and a semi-goth look that i think is rather fetching on my cute mama.

here she is, crying at her middle school graduation because she was moving from LA back to Vista.

and then....ah ha! she discovered her high school boyfriend, Terry Schmidt and all the world was good.

Marmy with her puppy Peachy in 1967. I want her lace dress. She sewed most of her own clothes.

And here with cousin Joanie from her dad's side.

I only met my grandfather once. He was institutionalized most of his adult life. But he was a brilliant man and devastatingly handsome, and from a wonderful family.

Through the 60s, mom would go visit her cousins from the Spring side of the family, the southwest part of our family that I am so drawn to.

My Nanny (great grandma) with Aunt Mary, and Aunt Helen.

Hispanic goddesses of the desert.

But back to my mom's most pressing teenage issue, her surfer boyfriend Terry, who gave her dates to the prom,

a killer tan....

and then broke her heart when he left for college.

And after nursing a broken heart, it turned out she had a wide variety of young moustachioed Southern Cali men to choose from for dates.

ooh I love that rambunctious purple maxi dress....

Christmas 1973, happy and glowing in another darling homesewn dress...

with my grandparents and grandpa corry's sons (mom's step-brothers, one of whom she briefly dated and looks a little like my Darin and one of whom has a wicked seventies bowl cut)

A cute thing about grandma cherie, who I've written about before, is that she always cries when she opens presents. just one more aspect of her graciousness.

and my great grandmother, the late Vernelle Cooper, who collected antique dolls and other pretty little things and could cozily talk to you all day long.

i like to think the reason my momma was extra happy that christmas is this right here:

she had met my dad in the fall and they would be married in may.

here she is with my uncle on her wedding morning, smiling way too big for the camera like i always do.

recognize grandma cherie's dress?

my wedding dress!

oh how i heart the 70s.

and on to married life fun like bringing the kitten to the beach (?!)

it is dear to me how much they loved their cat.

pops always liked getting ridiculous pics when she wasn't expecting it.

this was in their honeymoon cabin.

and my favorites of the batch, golden sunlight on my folks at Bates Nut Farm, where I ended up spending quite a bit of time in my childhood years later, in Escondido.

this is how i spend my saturday evening, friends.

along with a sore foot and a snuggly kitten and a bowl of popcorn and a cozy husband.

sigh, i am a nostalgic moonlove fool.