Lets have fun looking at these 10 fun nostalgic activities for your kids. In our last blog I gave you a challenge challenge on to you to turn off the TV for one night. Do fun things like they did in the past without a TV. Let’s discuss some nostalgic activities to do with your kids.

I hear it all the time. “The reason to have kids is so you can play with the toys yourself.” It brings back memories. challenge on to you. Turn off the TV for one night. Do fun things like they did in the past without a TV. To learn more ideas of things you can do, stay tuned in for out next blog.

1. Go outside and fly a kite. Make education more fun for your kids, by teaching them while they get to have fun at the same time.

2. Put on boots and jump in puddles. You can go way back in history and put bread sacks over your shoes with rubber bands to hold them on. Who remembers doing that? My grandma always saved old bread sacks just in case we wanted to go outside and did not have our boots with us.

3. Climb a tree. Remember when we used to see who could climb the highest in the tree? Spend time bonding with your child and make a homemade tree house. The tree house is where some of my brother’s best memories come from.

4. Skip stones across a pond. Again, it is a time to see how many skips your rock does. I still think my brother miscounted, even though he always won.

5. Have a picnic outside and make animals out of the clouds in the sky. This is a great activity to stretch your child’s imagination.

6. Sit back and just spend time listening to the rain under a tin roof. Teach your kids how you can tell how far away a thunderstorm is by the number of seconds between a lightening bolt and the thunder crack sound. It is approximate, but the number of seconds between the lightening bolt and thunder, equals how many miles away the storm is.

7. Visit a farm and see the animals. Take a horseback ride. Teach your kids not everything you eat comes from the grocery store.

8. Write a letter to yourself in the future. What do you think the world will look like 10, 20, or 50 years from now?

9. Get out your old toys as a kid and play with your child’s new toy dolls. It is like meshing two generations into one play family.

10. Make a time capsule together, preserving some of our child’s toys. You can also make a family time capsule together. Let each of your children throw in one special toy that they do not play with anymore but want to save. Pick out other items that represent your family.

Recall your old school life or childhood with your friends and siblings, as you play with your old toys of the past. Break out your Rubics cube. Call your friends over and tell them to bring some of their old toys. This could be one fun baby sitting hour with your children, while you go back in time playing with each other. Remember Teddy Ruxpin? What other stuffed bears were popular in your time? Have a Super Soaker squirt gun fight in your yard. You can still find some old Super Soakers on Ebay.

What was your favorite toy of the past? Compare your old baby doll to the newer technology dolls for your child today. I remember when Cabbage Patch kids were popular. Now there are baby dolls that talk, cry, and are very life like. What about the popular time of beanie babies? What is the most popular stuffed animal of today? I am sure it will be worth a fortune years in the future.

Save your old toys in a time capsule, to pass on to your children in the future. You never know how much of a collector’s item these toys will be in the future. You are preserving your child’s college fund when you put these items in a time capsule now.  You can get your own DIY Time Capsule here, to get started today.

So go outside today. What old nostalgic activity would you like to do with your kid today? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post 10 Fun Nostalgic Activities for your Kids appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

What are some things you can think of that kids of today will never experience? Ok, so I finally saved enough money to buy my very first car. I knew there was no way my parents would buy me a car. I wanted to look cool. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to have a car by my 16th birthday too, just like everyone else. It was nothing fancy, but I was proud not necessarily because I had a car, but because I worked hard helping my parents with chores at home, and at my job to save enough money to buy an old ’87 white Ford Tempo. My work ethic has not stopped, and I am forever grateful to my parents for that. I have learned so much from my good old days.

One day I was on my way to youth group at church, and my car died. Does anyone remember the days of having to use a pay phone (if you could find a working one), just to call for someone like your dad, to come and save the day? That is exactly what I had to do. I got out of my car, walked a ways down the road to a gas station, and had to use a pay phone. I did not have a convenient cell phone back then.

Remember the Good Old Days

Do you miss the good old days? I know I do. There are many things that come to mind when people just mention the 80’s or 90’s. There were good and bad memories tied into these times. It always starts with a parent or grandparent saying, “I remember when I was a kid…” and then my cousins and I would fill in the sentence saying, “…you walked up the hill both ways to go to school.” Then, that was always followed by a big laugh.

I cannot believe that I am now old enough to be telling stories of ‘the good old days.’ That was never suppose to happen to me. I was suppose to stay young forever. Times really have changed. I remember telling my parents when I was in high-school, “Mom, Dad, if this is how the world is now, what will it be like when I have kids?”  My parents told me later, it was a wise, scary question for a young teenager to be thinking about.

I have always been the person who thinks about the future. The person who makes decisions based on what will be the consequences or rewards, in the future, if I make this choice in my life now. I know not everyone is like that, but when you grow up in a family that does not have much, you tell yourself at a young age that you never want to live like this in the future.

Don’t get me wrong, I am beyond grateful for not having much, because it pushed me more to work hard to acquire much in the future. It seems like in my family who could not afford the latest and greatest video games, time was slower because we were able to concentrate on being more creative with each other. My brothers and I had to come up with creative games to play. We had to learn how to make chores fun, to the point that we ended up wanting to do them for free for our parents out of respect and boredom sometimes.

1. A World Without Cell Phones and Computers

Soon there will no longer be a generation who remembers growing up without cell phones and computers. What a scary thought. Remember when the hashtag sign, actually meant pound. So how long do you think it will take for a phone auto attendant to say push “hashtag” instead of “pound” to reach whomever you are trying to call or your account information. I also remember constant yelling in our house back and forth between my brothers and I, “get off the internet, so I can use the phone.” I am not even going to bring up how long it took to download songs on the internet in the past.

2. Black and White TVs

Who remembers the TV when it was black and white? Who remembers renting VCR tapes, instead of DVD’s? Who would have thought that you can now watch so many movies and tv shows off of your computer, let alone for free now. I remember the saying on the VCR tapes that said, ‘Please be kind, Rewind.’ Hopefully I am not giving away my age too much.

3. A World Without GPS

Who remembers having to pull out the big, bulky folding map or atlas in the car just to find out where you were, let alone where you were going? We did not have GPS back in the past. I guess the long lost joke about a guy never stopping to ask someone for directions is no longer needed, since everyone has a GPS now. Forget about even trying to fold your map back up when you are done. It is so convenient now to just turn your GPS off when you are done using it.

So what stories do you remember of the past? How do you keep these stories alive? Why not try making your own Family Time Capsule with the “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com/product/milestone-collection-any-occasion-diy-time-capsule/. For other fun similar articles on this topic, check out 31 Struggles Kids Today Will Never Understand.

So what do you remember from your ‘good old days’ that kids of today will not experience? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post 3 Things Kids of Today will Never Experience appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

So, why am I writing this blog after Christmas? You need all year to experience different memories, to pick the one you will make an memory ornament for. I want to get you in the Christmas mindset early in the year, in January.

What was Life Like when Your Parents were Younger?

Wouldn’t it be so cool to open up a blog every day that your parent wrote? Can you imagine living your life along with your parent each day? For some of us that sounds great, if you are very close to your parents like myself. For others, like my husband, that  may not be so easy if you do not always get along. For this particular blog I will be thinking about a close family that gets along most of the time. My brother and his wife recently had a baby. It would be so insightful and interesting to have a blog to read each day as it followed the life of my mother or father and what their feelings were as they were raising my brothers and I when they were a young couple. I wonder what Christmas time was like for my parents when they had their first baby? I am sure Christmas shopping was different that year. Can you imagine the average time it took to get out a a car to go shopping (before their baby was born), versus after they had a baby (much longer to get out of the car, unstrap the baby from the car seat, get the stroller, etc.)?

Pictured above is our family memory ornament Christmas tree. We have snowflakes made out of old cd’s, pictures of a whale seen by my brother and his wife on their vacation together, and other homemade ornaments with stories and meaning.

Reminisce with a Memory Ornament Christmas Tree

Every Christmas, my family adds a new ornament to our tree. This is not just any ordinary ornament. It is an ornament from the heart. An ornament that expresses how we felt or what we experiences as a good or bad memory this past year. We call it our memory ornament. We realize it is a different kind of Christmas tree. For us, it is kind of a time capsule tree.

Today I am grateful for a family memory tree to help put up each year. It is like opening a family time capsule every Christmas, to reflect upon, as the next New Year begins. There are a flood of all kinds of stories, memories, and emotions on that sentimental tree. 

We only have one life. Make your life last with a time capsule. Pass on your own memory ornaments and stories about your family and past heritage in a time capsule.

How to Make a Memory Ornament

At The Original Time Capsule company, our goal is to create, inspire, educate, and help you decorate your home and life with meaningful, keepsake gifts. With this blog we want to offer you several videos to help you create your own memory ornament. Keep in mind a memory ornament is personal. It can be something that gives significance to your past year or a memory from growing up. As you can see from our own family memory ornament tree, there are several odd looking ornaments. For my family, it is not always about making the tree look good. Instead, it is important to us to make a tree with meaning. It is fun each year putting each ornament on, reminiscing about each memorable, funny, or inspiring story of growth.

What you will need:

• stencils
• glass or plastic clear decorations
• markers, paint, stickers, or scrapbooking crafts
• cardboard
• clay
• paper
• popsicle sticks
• glue gun
• rhinestones
• construction paper
• photo paper
• ribbon
• scissors
• glue
• printer
• camera
• anything you can think of extra to make your unique ornament

Personalized Christmas Ornament Steps:

1. Think of something that happened this year or in years past, that has impacted you the most.

2. Think about how you would make an ornament representing this memory. You can use a pre-created glass or plastic decoration you buy and fill with items yourself. You can also print out a photo of your memory and frame it in a decorative or other creative way. You can also capture your memory in a memory ornament made completely from scratch using the materials listed above or anything else you find in your home or at a store. The sky’s the limit, as far as your creativity. That is what truly makes your ornament personalized. Be creative.

3. Place stickers on ornament, put items inside of your ornament, decorate your ornament. Don’t forget to take a picture of it to write about the story behind the ornament. Save this photo and story in a photo album, so no one in the family will ever forget the full story behind your memory ornament.

Examples of Memory Ornaments

Check out the following videos to help you get started with your memory ornament. Save your own memory ornament in a Family Christmas Time Capsule to open each year when you set up the tree. What a fun way to reminisce and bond closer together, as you relive each story. Get an “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule to make your own Christmas time capsule today at www.timecapsule.com. Also check out this cool journal memory ornament you can make with a FREE Printable available to get you started at http://www.boho-weddings.com/2014/12/08/christmas-ornament/. Journal your life throughout the year, and save it in an ornament. What a great way to reflect about several memories over the year, all at once in one ornament. A perfect keepsake to preserve in your time capsule.

Picture Frame Memory Ornament

Clear Ball Memory Ornament Idea

Baby’s First Christmas Ornament

Don’t forget to save all these memory ornaments in your time capsule. So what was your greatest memory of this past year? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post How to Make a Inexpensive DIY Memory Ornament appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

Time capsules are a great place to illustrate and save our spiritual and inward journey in an outward, physical way. Pass on your faith through a gift that lasts a lifetime. A time capsule can help you chronicle your introduction to faith. You can also store your questions and prayers, and then answers received, in this sacred place of the time capsule.

Photo from: https://www.facebook.com/UnionChapelMuncie/photos/a.10152257301876845.1073741836.131023046844/10152257303296845/?type=1&theater

Give a Baby Time Capsule as a Baptism or Christening Gift

After a baby dedication or baptism, ministers can give this timeless keepsake in the form of a decorative time capsule to the proud parents. You can get a Baby Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com/product/babystimecapsule/.

The guests at the baptism ceremony can each write a note to the child using the “Message to the Future” letters included. This is a perfect for a Godmother to give away as a gift, let alone a gift from the parents of the child. The baptism of a baby is a joyful celebration, as many family members gather around taking photos. Use the photos as the first sentimental mementos to save in your baby’s time capsule.

Make sure to include a souvenir or item representing something from the religious belief or church. Also make sure to include things like a newspaper from the day of the baptism or christening. This is a timeless gift, for such a memorable milestone moment in your child’s life. Preserve this part of your baby’s history in a time capsule. Then store the decorative Baby Time Capsule in the nursery, or somewhere private for his or her 18th or 21st birthday or any other birthday or special occasion.

When the time capsule is opened, it will be interesting to see what life was like the year you baby was born, how things have changed, and all the nostalgic keepsakes inside which will probably create a few laughs and tears.

Youth Pastors can Use a Time Capsule

Youth pastors can also use a time capsule for lesson about saving yourself for marriage. You could have the youth each write a letter to their future selves about who they want to marry. You could also do a lesson about treasuring their days of youth, and using this time in their life to journal about their changes, challenges, and choices they are going through at this milestone moment of being a teenager.

The youth could do a lesson about putting away their old self, as they are trying to lose weight, get off drugs, learn how to avoid negativity, or bad company they hang around, by writing these things down, then putting them in the time capsule. It would be interesting as an adult, to open the time capsule years later to see how much you have grown or changed for the better as a teenager in youth group. This may be a great activity for a few of us as adults too, now that I think about it.

What one thing do you wish you knew as a teenager, now that you are older? What do you wish your parent’s had warned you about, encouraged you to do, or shared with you as a teenager? Have the parents of the teenagers, write out “Message to the Future” letters to the youth about predictions of where they see their son or daughter in the future, giving advice, or sharing funny stories of hope, encouragement, and life as an adult.

Photo from: https://www.facebook.com/UnionChapelMuncie/photos/a.10152257301876845.1073741836.131023046844/10152257304551845/?type=1&theater

There are many versatile uses for the time capsule. Just because it says Baby Time Capsule, does not mean you cannot buy it and collect items for your teenager now. I know you have a few spare photos of your teenager when he or she was a baby. Include those baby photos, along with a few mementos from your teenager’s life currently in the Baby Time Capsule.

Your teenager does not need to know when you purchased the time capsule. “It is the thought that counts.” After all, no matter how old your teenager is, they will always be your “baby.”So preserve your teenager’s story today, so he or she can reminisce tomorrow or years into the future. What a great Graduation gift.

What would you put in your child’s time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie
www.timecapsule.com

The post Who Can Use a Time Capsule – Church Time Capsule Ideas appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

You know I have been married to my husband for 10 years now. Not a week goes by that I don’t discover something new about him or our marriage. When you have your own business, it can be very difficult to get away from your work. You cannot ‘clock out’ in a sense. As an entrepreneur, I really don’t want to ever ‘clock out’ though, because I can get so many inspirational ideas from so many different people and places I go or work.

Marriage takes Work – Date your Spouse

Whether you work from home, are an entrepreneur, or work for someone else, we all need to work on our marriages too. It is difficult to keep giving energy, ideas, and encouragement to others if you are not being given to yourself also. So, one day I was thinking about how to use our own Wedding Time Capsule in a more creative way to give back to each other as husband and wife. The time capsule is a unique gift in of itself, so what is a different way to use it after it has been opened and you have reminisced over the memorabilia you have saved in it for the first year of your marriage?

What to do with your Wedding Time Capsule, when Opened

You already opened you own Wedding Time Capsule filled with your sentimental mementos, from your first year of marriage, honeymoon, and a few items before you got married. What a special day it was as you laughed and cried over your nostalgic items as you pulled them out of the time capsule. So now what? You can display the items in a shadow box in your home, you can leave them in the time capsule, or you could pass on some of your heirloom items to your children. If you want you can completely empty the wedding time capsule, and start over again collecting your favorite items of this time, to open at your next milestone anniversary date.

365 Ways to Say ‘I Love You’ or Ways to Date your Spouse

You could also, have friends and family members write down several date ideas on slips of paper, fold up the papers, and then place them in the time capsule. You will need 365 slips of blank paper, so you have one date idea per day of a year. Start pulling one date idea out of your wedding time capsule, each day to give you a creative way to connect and bond closer as a couple daily.

To help get you started on ideas, visit http://www.familylife.com/articles/topics/marriage/staying-married/husbands/20-ideas-for-dating-your-wife#.U_UCHfldVbE. You could also put 365 reasons why you love each other on the pieces of paper to pull out and read to each other every day of the year. To give you ideas for this, visit http://everydayloveexo.tumblr.com/365reasonswhyiloveyou.

What is a great date night idea, you would put in the time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie
www.timecapsule.com

The post How to Date Your Spouse appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

We have been discussing in previous blogs about ideas of who can use a time capsule. If you are human, an organization, business, or pet, or basically anything of importance you can use a time capsule.

Help your hard-working boy or girl scouts review their accomplishments over the past year. Keep your projects or photos of your proud moments, or badges received, in your time capsule. What a special day it will be when you as an adult scout, open your own personal time capsule, to show your son or daughter what your own boy or girl scouts was like.

Yes, your parents are there to teach you lessons, teachers can make an impact on your life, and your youth leader or pastor can help guide you, but your boy or girl scouts can teach you special life hacks and other valuable skills. Hard work and determination help guide you through your journey of becoming a scout.

The Scout Effect

Boy or girl scouts can have a great effect on your life. When I think of a time capsule in general, it is interesting to see how scouting was different in the past compared to today. I never had the opportunity to be a girl scout, however I wish I would have because I am a very down to earth girl. I have talked with friends who were a part of the scouts. They talked about the learning how to start a fire with sticks and how much persistence that took, to receive their camping merit badge.

Why would you let your parent eventually throw that badge away after you grew up and moved out of your parent’s home? Save it in a time capsule. That was a milestone moment in your life. It effected you to be focused, finish what you start, and learn the rewards in life from not quitting. That is a great badge and lesson to pass on to your future children as an example.

For my other friends, the girl scouts have prepared them for their future careers. They were taught how to be confident and have a healthy self-esteem. What great lessons to pass on to their future daughters, using a time capsule.

When to Have Boy or Girl Scout Open the Time Capsule

The unique thing about a scout time capsule is that it can be filled with mementos and treasures that the boy or girl cannot open until they either earn their Eagle or Graduate High school. You pick. It is all up to you as the leader or the scout creating their time capsule. What a fun project for a scout troop to make together.

I know some companies look for great leadership and teamwork, so what better way to pass on these lessons you learned in boy or girl scouts, than with a Baby Time Capsule. Preserve your stories and badges in the time capsule, so when your child graduates high-school, he or she can open it and you can further instill the messages of what you learned in scouts as a way of encouraging the same behaviors and virtues in your grown child, in the real world environment now.

Have the scouts fill out an all about me worksheet, to save basic information about themselves in their time capsules, to read years later. Continue to read about this topic and 10 Things I learned from Boy Scouts at http://geoffreywebb.com/2010/08/03/10-things-i-learned-from-boy-scouts/. Also check out this article of girl scouts who opened a time capsule 16 years later at http://www.ivpressonline.com/news/local/junior-girl-scout-troops-open–year-old-time-capsule/article_81f8b670-42be-11e3-aee1-001a4bcf6878.html.

What would you put in a scout time capsule? Share your ideas below in the comments please.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie
www.timecapsule.com

Note: Girl Scout Quote Photo taken from http://article.wn.com/view/2014/05/15/READER_SUBMITTED_Panelists_Announced_For_Girl_Scouts_Of_Conn/

The post How Boy or Girl Scouts can Preserve their Memories appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

This is a continuation of our blog posts discussing, who all can use a time capsule. Time capsules are not just for the receiver, but for the giver who created it too. Grandparents are special people in this world, filled with treasured stories to tell us all. They are filled with so much wisdom.

When you make a time capsule about your life, your grandchildren gain understanding and insight as to why you are filled with your wisdom. It will be pure joy to save special paperwork or projects your grandchildren made on their own, for you. Time capsules help bring together many families and close the generational differences and/or geographic distance.

One special day, my cousins, aunts, uncles, and my parents decided to make the most special gift we have ever given my grandmother. She is one of the funniest, sweetest, and wisest woman you will ever meet. She has a lot of stories herself about life during the ‘good old days.’ We wanted to give back to her in a creative way, and make it something that would be remembered for years to come in the future. This is the point of our time capsules, to give back all these stories for generations to come.

How to Make a Grandparent’s Memory Book or Scrapbook

Luckily, we have a few creative people in our family, and we all communicate well. So, each family member was mailed decorative card stock paper in different sizes, like index cards. We were each assigned to think of sentimental stories, funny sayings, or fun memories we all remember Grandma saying or doing with us in years past.

The family profile really started to fill in quick, as we started to hear past stories about what my father did with his mother and brother when he was younger. This was such a great bonding moment for us all. This is also a great way to make sure your family heritage is passed on, and never forgotten. You can write about family accomplishments, milestones you have overcome together, projects made, and overall how things used to be (in the world without the internet or cell phones).

• Pictures of your grandparent’s wedding

• Pictures of what work in the fields looked like in the past

• Pictures of what family time consisted of in the past

• Pictures of family Christmas get-togethers

• Pictures of old vehicles driven or old tv shows of your grandparent’s time

• Pictures of making your favorite recipe with your grandmother

Do not forget to put in the Grandparent scrapbook, great photos to make her laugh, cry, and reminisce. Showcase her personality. Again, similar to our time capsules we sell, you can also include newspaper clippings about your grandparent, the bandana he or she always used, the candy wrapper showing her favorite sweet, her grandchildren’s artistic drawings, or anything else meaningful to describe her. Make sure to include a journal time line in the scrapbook answering the who, what, when, where, and why the moment was significant, for each photo or note card story you fill out.

After gathering your photos, stories on the colorful note cards, and memorabilia then you can put together your scrapbook pages, along with the additional scrapbook stickers, art, or stamped images to add more character and make the scrapbook a finished product to be proud of.

Presenting the Grandparent Memory Book or Scrapbook

It’s a party. It’s a celebration of life. Make sure you wrap the Grandparent scrapbook, and give it as a gift when you are all gathered around as a family. Also make sure someone video records this milestone moment. You do not know what you have until it is gone. You can even save your scrapbook in a Baby Time Capsule, to give to the next grandchild who is about to be born. What a legacy gift that will be. Get your artistic Baby Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com/product/babystimecapsule/.

Start today and document your family’s history and create a lasting gift for future generations. This is a heritage scrapbook project that keeps on giving.

What is your favorite memory about your grandmother? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie
www.timecapsule.com

Note: Grandparent photo with baby taken from http://www.grandparents.com/family-and-relationships/grandparent-names/choose-your-grandparent-name

The post How to Make a Memory Book for Grandparents appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

What does it mean to you to be independent, or to be free? We want to wish you a Happy Fourth of July by taking you back and reminiscing about your times of freedom. Celebrate life and how far you have come. This is what a time capsule is all about. Celebrating life or a specific milestone moment that changed your life or helped you feel more free, or independent.

Let’s reminisce. Remember when:

1. You first learned to walk.
2. The first time chose your own clothes to wear.
3. The first time you took your training wheels off your bike.
4. The first time you took a drink of any pop (soda for those in the south).
5. You held your first car keys to drive.
6. You went on your first date.
7. The first time you went ice skating
8. The first time you kissed a girl or boy
9. The first child you had
10. The first child you gave away in marriage or the day your first child went off to college.

Sometimes our firsts do not seem like freedom. Sometimes freedom or independence can seem hard. It is all a matter of perspective. Sometimes you do not feel the sense of freedom, until years later and then realize it was for the better. It is then, when you realize this that you have the true feeling of what “independence” is.

Even though we may experience several times of independence while growing up, we are never too far away from loved one’s hearts and minds. Make sure you spend this fourth of July building milestone moments and have fun watching each other grow and become more independent. Make it a family event this holiday by participating in an activity you will never forget.

Make a Fourth of July Time Capsule to Reflect on one year on July 4, 2015.

Reminisce or think about what exactly has changed in your life since last year’s Fourth of July? Many times life goes by so fast, that we often forget the special and regular days in between each year. This time capsule is an activity is something you do to look back and say, “Oh that is really cool that we have this.”

Favorite 4th of July Activity to Do with your Kids – Time Capsule

Put things that mean something to your family from the year. Create a time capsule quiz about your favorite sport, movie, song, food, restaurant, tv show, shoe size or anything that has special meaning in your life this year. Personalize the quiz. Also create a family scavenger hunt for your family to do throughout the 4th of July day, before watching the fireworks together in the evening as a celebration wrap-up of your fun-filled and memorable day together. Make sure to take pictures throughout your day, and collect a few other photos from your year so far to put in your time capsule. Have fun and save your funny or meaningful family quotes in the time capsule on slips of paper to read a year later, or whenever you choose to open the time capsule. This is such a great family activity to bond you all closer, especially if one of your children are about to leave for college or become more independent.

The Family Scavenger Hunt – Stroll Down Memory Lane

Make the Fourth of July Time Capsule activity fun, by using a scavenger hunt for the kids and adults to find items hidden in your town and house, to collect and put in your time capsule. What a fun way to experience the past year all over together. Have one item with a clue that leads to the next. For example, set it up so you have to visit the houses of several people or friends you already visited this past year for special events, birthday parties, etc to collect or find an item to put in the time capsule. I remember doing fun things like this in our youth group and it was a blast. For other ideas of what you can collect to put in the time capsule, check out this website for 100 scavenger hunt lists and ideas at http://www.diva-girl-parties-and-stuff.com/scavenger-hunts.html

Baby’s First July 4th Craft Ideas to Save in a Baby Time Capsule

If it is the first Fourth of July for your baby to see, why not collect items to put in their decorative Baby Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com? Then, let your child open this time capsule years later at another Fourth of July in the future, as a way to re-celebrate what life was like when he or she was born. If you are looking for fun crafts to make for your child’s first Fourth of July, check out these at http://redtri.com/no-fire-required-10-easy-fourth-of-july-crafts/

Happy Fourth of July everyone! What are your plans for this July 4th? Comment below please.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

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Let’s Learn How to Save Audio Recordings in a Time Capsule – The Phone Call

This blog gives new meaning to “save the date.” Drumroll Please: (If you have been following this blog series of how I met my future wife) And now the moment you have been waiting for….the phone call to my future wife.

Over the next 3 weeks we emailed about every day.  I’m not talking about these one or two sentence emails.  I’m talking about pages and pages of emails.  We talked about friends and family.  We talked about how we grew up.  We talked about church.  We talked about music and movies.  We talked about everything from what we ate that day to her college professors.  We talked about what path our lives were on and what we saw for the future.  We emailed about everything!

There comes a point when you decide that email is great, but in order to progress your relationship from being pen pals to actual friends, you have to at least talk on the phone.  I finally asked her for her phone number to call.  She gave her number to me and said she would be unavailable for a few days.  This seemed like an eternity!

I waited several days for her to be available.  It was a Thursday afternoon when she told me to call.  I remember that I was sitting in my office and it took me a while to build up the courage to call.  I have never been really good at talking with girls, but this was different.  I wasn’t romantically involved with this girl, but somehow it seemed like I was.  I felt close to her yet, I didn’t even really know her.  This made things difficult in my mind.  Still, I pushed through.  I needed to hear this girls voice.

I dialed.  The phone began to ring.  She answered.  My heart skipped a beat as I heard her answer.  Her voice was light and playful.  I said hello and told her who I was.  She giggled playfully and told me that she had something come up and that I needed to call her at her parents house later that night.  I took down the new number and hung up.  The afternoon seemed to drag on forever, but I was ultimately pleased with the change.  You see, while we lived in the same state, she was about an hour away and that meant that the number was long distance.  Since she needed me to call her later that night, I could use my cell phone and not pay for the long distance.  Since it was after 7:00 PM, it would even be in the scope of my free cell phone minutes.  The only thing I liked better than talking to my new friend on the phone was doing it for free!

That night I called her a little after my free minutes kicked in.  I wasn’t nearly as nervous this time.  I dialed.  It rang.  Then it happened. . . Her dad answered.  I was suddenly nervous again.  I explained that I was a friend of Marcie’s and asked if she was there.  He proceeded to yell, “Marcie, some guy is on the phone for you.”  He then said, “Is this Steve?”  I said, “Ummm, No.”

“George?” he continued.

“No,” I replied.

“Kevin?”

It was about this time that I could hear her in the background struggling for the phone saying things like, “Dad, Stop!  Give me the phone!  Quit!  That is so embarrassing.”

He finally said, “Well, I don’t know which guy you are, but here she is” and he handed Marcie the phone.

I could hear the panic in her voice.  She wasn’t sure how I would take this interaction.  She apologized and explained that her father had a habit of embarrassing her.  While I thought it was funny, I had to play like I was offended!  “So, who is Steve, Kevin and George?  Is one of them your boyfriend?”  I could actually hear her shift her weight in embarrassment!  Despite her embarrassment, we had a good conversation.  Over the next few days and weeks we were able to get to know each other well.  I learned how close she was to her family and how big a jokester her father actually was.

I didn’t realize it, but I was beginning to actually have feelings for this girl.

You know it is so easy to forget all these details if you do not write them down, let alone save those special ticket stubs with the date and time stamped from your first date or event where you met your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, etc.

This is why we do what we do. We help you preserve even these special moments like the first phone call from when you met “the one.” Save the date, time, and recording of your first phone message in a Wedding Time Capsule, to listen to years later. With so many people out there with smart phones now, I wanted to offer this website as a help to teach you how to record your phone calls to save in a time capsule for years, to listen to and reminisce over when you are older or on that special 25th anniversary for your marriage. Check out how to record your phone calls at http://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-record-calls-on-my-smartphone-479216478 If you use another means to record your first phone call with that someone special, make sure you have a means to listen to it back years later in the future.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

Credits: Featured Photo taken from http://www.yourdatingplan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/when-to-call-a-girl-back.jpg

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21 Creative Ways to Use a Time Capsule to Connect with Teenagers

You know, I remember asking my mom and dad when I was a teenager, “If life is like this now, what is it going to be like when my children are teenagers?” It was a rhetorical question, one of the many that came from my random thoughts as a teenager. I have always been one of those kids who was told, “you are wise beyond your years.” My parents made it a goal to consistently make sure they were bonding with us in positive ways. When I worked as a counselor in my own private practice, I heard many different life stories from young kids and teenagers. It is vital, to find anything and everything you can to communicate to teenagers about their world, even if it is a time capsule.

This blog is a continuation about who can use a time capsule. These priceless and treasured gifts can also be used by teenagers. During a time of great confusion, a teenager is trying to discover his or her identity. The following is a list of 21 ways to use a teenage time capsule to connect with with adolescence on a deeper level.

1. Write a “Message to the Future” letter to yourself about where you see yourself after you graduate or get married.

2. Use the time capsule as an anonymous container in your youth group, for kids to put questions or comments on slips of paper to leave for staff to read once per week, or have teachers from your teenagers high-school, fill out a letter about predictions of where they see him or her in the future.

3. To put your nostalgic memorabilia in, from childhood, to open years later and reminisce about what life was like during that time in your life.

4. To save love letters from your first boyfriend, to review later when you meet “the one.” What a fun day that may be when you read those old letters from your “first” official boyfriend. A time capsule will help you remember this “first” or milestone moment in your life.

5. Adolescence is an adventure in of itself, of which includes many exciting events that need to be preserved in a profile book of yourself that you can include in your time capsule.

6. For a teenager, giving them the privacy they so desperately want, is connecting with them. Let them develop their independence, as they learn skills of how to make it in life on their own, by encouraging them to keep extra money in their time capsule like a savings bank with emergency money.

7. For a teenager, a time capsule is similar to diaries, journals, or saved emails to yourself. Time capsules can be a place to work out difficult life questions, as you write about your feelings and changing relationships.

8. Connect with your teenager by using the time capsule to teach them about what to hold on to and what to let go. Let them put those emotions on pieces of paper or in a letter, put their old favorite shirt or toy in a time capsule, to bury or put away for years, helping them forget about it and let go.

9. Leave your teenager a letter, in the time capsule, about what life was like when you were a teenager. Then have your teenager open the time capsule with the letter in it and other significant items you saved from his or her life so far.

10. In the time capsule, leave a list of positive words that describe your teenager. Make it look nice on special paper, that maybe he or she will want to frame and hang on the wall.

11. Show you listen to your teenager, and put something significant in the time capsule and then give it to them to open as if a present. For example, put a favorite book, movie, or music, etc in the time capsule.

12. When you feel your daughter is of age to wear make-up, put a set of different colors of eye shadow, lipstick, nail polish, etc in a time capsule and have a special party as she enters adulthood. You could even invite her friends over for a make-up party.

13. Write a love letter to your teenager, and say how proud of them you are. Leave it in their time capsule, telling them when they can open it, for their special surprise.

14. Let your teenager use the time capsule as a place to write out the full story of what happened (during a problem in their life or if he or she made a bad life decision). This helps your teenager get the whole story out, before you react or jump to conclusions.

15. Create a favorite, new, recipe together and save it in their time capsule for years so they have it for when they get married.

16. Keep a souvenir from your fun vacation together, in their time capsule.

17. Take great photos of moments with your teenager, or their friends, and preserve them in a time capsule for years. Then, at their graduation, open the time capsule and reminisce about the “good old days.”

18. Keep a gift or memorabilia from a shared hobby or passion, you have spent time doing with your teenager, in the time capsule. None of us really truly understand what a special time in our lives meant, until it is gone or your teenager has left for college far away.

19. Put the keys to their first car, in the time capsule, then let them open the time capsule when they receive their driver’s license.

20. Make a college survival gift basket kit, with the time capsule holding many significant items from their childhood, you feel he or she would want to preserve and take to college.

21. Make a bucket list to keep in your time capsule, to see what all you have accomplished by the time you open the time capsule.

I hope this list of ideas is just a start for you to connect better with your teenager. A time capsule is a gift that keeps on giving and giving. Pass on your life lessons, and preserve your teenager’s milestone moments in a time capsule. Help your adolescent tell his or her own children what life was like when he or she was a teenager, with the use of a decorative time capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com. For other ideas of what to put in a teenage time capsule, check out http://www.education.com/activity/article/Make_High_School_Time_Capsule/

What is one thing you would put in your teenager’s time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

www.timecapsule.com

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