Checking Off My Bucket List and Keeping the Memories Alive

Do you have a bucket list? Maybe you call it your 'when I win the lottery list' or perhaps the 'when I retire' list or simply a 'to-do' list. Whatever you call it there is list somewhere (written or mental) of things you would like to do someday. Mine is a mental list. Some I may have said out loud some I keep deep in my heart.

One of my bucket list items was to visit Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Visiting these two places has been on my list for over 35 years. Prince Edward Island went on the list after I read Anne of Green Gables and saw the movies. Nova Scotia? That one may have come about when I saw the flyers at the tourist center we stopped at on every trip to Maine. They just captured my imagination.

Argyle Shore Prince Edward Island

The Adventure Begins

I decided I would embark on this journey in March. As with everything I get the idea to do - it had to be researched and planned. Step one was getting passports for me and my travel companions (aka daughters) as we had never left the country before. While Canada would be ok with our real IDs the US wanted proof we belonged here to return. Get passport. It was another bucket list item checked.

Checking off the List

Once I decided to go a new list started. It was the list of everything I wanted to do or see. I am not a big outdoorsy person so biking across the province or riding a tidal bore didn't appeal to me. However, whale watching sounded good and would make the zoology major daughter happy. It would also check off another of my bucket list items - assuming we saw whales. I have always been fascinated by the night sky and my other daughter was excited when I found an observatory in the 'dark skies' area of Nova Scotia. The Bay of Fundy was also a must-see. There were a lot of other items on the list but the providence is bigger than I thought and we were only going to have 9 days. I was drawn to all the lighthouses and decided that is what I wanted to do, see lighthouses.

Burncoat Park

Lighthouse route

Cape Medway Light Nova Scotia

Capturing the Memories

As the family historian and scrapbooker, pictures are always a priority on vacation. I am always working on finding the balance between capturing the moment and being in the moment. It is a fine line and another blog post to balance it. The advantage of traveling with young adults is they always have their phones in hand. I would often say 'take a picture of that' as we were driving and one of them would. They both know how to use FOREVER so all the photos ended up in a shared album. Some even labeled with where the picture was taken or what it was!

Keeping the Bucket List Memories Alive

All my photos were preserved in FOREVER. We had labeled several of them and organized them into albums by each day and then nested albums by activity. But I am old school and wanted to have some to hold, to share with friends that showcased the photos more than the phone would.

a page from my 'coffee table' book

I created a quick and easy album with the look of a coffee table book. I used the seamless lay-flat binding to capture that look. It allowed me to spread a large photo across two pages or for multiple pictures to be showcased. I had it in my hands within 10 days of my return to show how I accomplished my bucket list trip. It is the first of what I plan to be multiple trips because it inspired many more additions to my bucket list.

another page from my album

What did you do this summer?

If you checked items off your bucket list this summer - maybe ones more interesting than getting a passport - did you take pictures? Have you saved them somewhere so they will always be safe to prove you did it? Do you want a brag book to show off to friends and family? Or at least an easy way to share them digitally? If you need help answering yes! to any of these questions - let me know. I can help.