"Why would you scrapbook those pictures?"

In a recent conversation with friends I was talking about a family vacation.  Our travel day was a nightmare with Olivia running a high fever and delays in abundance. We ended up staying overnight in New York as we travelled from Minnesota to Florida. Olivia didn't look so great and no one was in any sort of mood to be photographed. BUT it was travel day!!  Click .. Click .. Click ..

Of course I'm working on a scrapbook layout for my vacation book.  When I talked about the pages one of the people asked in an amazed & accusing sort of way.... "why would you scrapbook those pictures??" [I have to point out that she didn't ask me why I took the pictures in the first place ... everyone who knows me just accepts that I take pictures of everything.]

My question is ... "Why not??".  I scrapbook life, even when it's not happy or pretty or exciting. My scrapbooks are the story of our family. Wouldn't it seem weird to look back and never see a picture of someone who is crabby OR having a bad hair day? When something seems like a bad memory isn't it good to create a scrapbook page so you can realize that you pressed through and conquered a less than delightful situation?

This layout is a good example. It's the reason why there aren't very many photos of my husband and I together. Our photographer, Adam, was more interested in catching us off guard than capturing the perfect picture. It was tempting to delete the whole batch because they didn't work. I'm not a fan of looking at pictures of myself anyway.  BUT some day we're going to look at these less than perfect pictures and see regular life. We're going to comment on how young we look and wonder what we were laughing about. These photos don't mark any sort of occasion at all, just some day in the summer of 2010. If I have pictures of something ... I make a scrapbook page : )