Shank Mini Album

Yes, that starts with Shank....

As some people know, everyone who reads more then one post of mine should know this by now, I am an Air Traffic Controller with the US Army, and have been since July of 2010. After I graduated Army school (after basic) I was sent to an aviation unit in Fort Bragg, NC in 2011 and deployed to Afghanistan in September 2011 to a small place called Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank. Yes.... they named a military base in Afghanistan after a tool used in prison to kill people.... that gave us warm and fuzzy feelings when we found that out....

I spent a year at FOB Shank and it was both one of the best and worst experiences of my life. I learned a lot during that year there, it was definitely interesting. Shank was affectionally dubbed Mortar city because we had the most Indirect fire out of the entire brigade the entire time we were deployed with over 250 attacks that year (not counting individual rounds). Fireworks aren't much fun for me anymore and I am sure I have at least a slight case of PTSD from that year, but that is really neither here nor there.

About the middle of 2014 I made the decision to start Project Life and scrapbooking for serious.  I have accumulated a BUTT TON of pictures over the years, and my deployment is no exception to that. I was looking through my picture albums on my computer and it occurred to me last week that I could make a mini album of my deployment. I want to remember more of the cool memories from that year, the things I learned, and the accomplishments I made while I was there.

I bought this mini binder from Target from the Home Office section because I loved the pattern and I just had to punch holes in the page protectors to properly fit the album.

I got most of the pictures printed at CVS because I still don't have a picture printer (although Mo and I did find a good Canon printer at Target for $100 that we're thinking about buying once we get back to Germany).

I rounded the corners of the pictures with an 1/2" edge trimmer I bought from Target (I've gotten a lot of stuff there this trip and the one near where Mo lives is better then the Walmart in his neighborhood too). I then organized them in chronological order as best as I found (I need to check the metadata on the photos to be sure) and put them in sheet protectors and then into the binder.

I have to wait until I get back to Germany to put the Project Life cards into place to tell some of the stories since I only brought Christmas themed ones with me to finish December Daily. I also have to reorder some of the pictures because they messed up some of the pictures.

What do you think?