When we were in elementary school, we sometimes made time capsules.  The concept was that one would fill a box with things of that era, bury it, so that in the future, someone would know find it and know what life was like back then.   In 6th grade, I think we filled ours with Milly Vanilli cassettes, slap bracelets, and the like.

I was visiting my Mom in Virginia this week and happened to find a special time capsule.

She’s had all my father’s memorabilia packed into the basement since his passing.  I remember as a child a really neat scrapbook she’d made him after they got married. She took all his souvenirs and keepsakes from his summer in Europe and made a book to tell the story.  Anyhow, I have been looking for it for at least the past five years and every trip down to the basement, I haven’t found it.

It became more important to me now we live in Europe.  I wanted to line up our travels and compare sites.

I always loved this photo and wanted to know the history. Anyone know what city this could have been? Amsterdam?

And this leads us to this Friday’s gratitude post…. this trip, I attempted again and voila, they were found.  Actually in the spot they should have been.  Not sure how I overlooked these totes each time.

I wanted to share some of what I found:

Dachau brochures

Was a book from Sweeden

The Berlin wall would only have been 5 years old when he visited in 1966

Loved the 5 franc piece

They had “crashed” a party of Princess Grace and Prince Rainer while traveling through Monaco. They even took a napkin and menu as a little souvenir. My grandparents saved the article from The States about the party.

Their road map with stops circled

Mugs from Haufbrau House

Coasters from all over Europe

We’d seen this rainbow the night before setting over the house.  I’m grateful for the spot of luck in brought me in my search!

 Not sure what my plans are for the items. They’ll stay in Virginia I think until we are back in The States.  Then maybe the coasters can become a glass topped table, and we’ll surely have to display the HB house things in our future home.