In just a few days, our family will be having our bi-annual reunion. Mom comes from a large, extended family and we’re planning to have about 100 “Wong” relatives from various places across the USA gather again for a few days, this time in Grand Rapids.

One tradition of our reunions is the family auction. Everyone brings an item to be auctioned and the proceeds from the auction help to finance future reunions.

As it turns out, I’m again late getting my item ready for the auction. I need some help so I make a few calls to Mom and Aunt Jean. They frantically comb through their basements looking for old photographs. After meeting for lunch they hand me a few shoeboxes filled to the brim with photos.

For the next three hours, I grow nostalgic as I sort through piles of precious family memories. I carefully choose three dozen or so pictures of Mom’s immediate family and scan them. Most of these are are black and whites dating from the 1940’s growing up in the New Rochelle, N.Y. area. I’m amazed by the quality of the originals. Yes, they’ve been stored in boxes, but they show no sign of fading after all their years.

For the auction, I am putting together a Wong Family photobook. The photobook will have two facing pages each for my maternal grandparents and each of their ten children. Based on my daughter’s recommendation, I choose to print my photo through the online Kodakgallery.

Up to now, I’m not familiar with Kodakgallery. But I soon learn that I can keep up to 2GB of photos on their site as long as I purchase $4.99 worth of photos or services from Kodak during the year. If I agree to purchase at least $19.99 during the year, I can keep more than 2GB of photos on their site.

Since my photos are stored in a single folder on my PC, I find it easy to upload them to an album at Kodakgallery. Kodak can print snapshot photos, enlargements, canvas, and much more. For now, I’m only interested in a photobook, so I click to start a new Project and chose a style (hardcover), a finish (red linen) and a layout for each of the pages.

I chose a layout to emphasize the photos and minimize any text. I found it easy to drag a desired photo to the layout and fine tune its position. In less than 30 minutes, I’ve completed the 26-page project. I preview the photobook one last time with Kodak’s very intuitive on-screen icons.

I submit the photobook for printing, enter my shipping and billing information and I’m done (Thursday evening on July 15). The cost is $24 plus postage. To my surprise, the next morning I receive a notice from Kodak (Friday, July 16) that the book is complete and is already out for delivery. The UPS delivery man drops the photobook in my lap early this morning (Monday, July 19). I am very pleased with the result:

click to see finished photobook

Now with photobook in hand, I’m anxious for the reunion to begin so that I can visit with all of the Wong (wrong 🙂 ) relatives. And I’m hoping that that my auction item helps to finance our next reunion.

Please note that Stay Focused has no connections to neither Kodak nor Kodak Gallery. The information presented here is based on my personal experience of using their services.