Family photos

We’ve moved around a fair bit since Heather and I got married. From a flat in South Shields to a flat in Edinburgh, to another flat, a third flat and a house in Edinburgh, to Mam and Dad’s place in Billingham, to a house in Durham, to temporary accommodation in Cupertino and now to our current place in San Jose. 8 or 9 homes in just under 11 years.

Partly due to this constant moving around, one thing we’ve never managed to do is put some pictures up on the walls of our home. We always wanted to, but it just never seemed to happen. Recently, we determined to get it done. We read something about how it builds self awareness and self-esteem in children and I can understand that. We want the children to know that there’s nothing we’d rather have on our walls than their little faces – that they are the centre of our universe. We also want them to see the pictures and remember a lot of happy times. So, with a visit from my parents approaching, we determined to get the pictures up before Mam and Dad arrived.

I’ve got a love/hate relationship with Costco. We’ve got a big family, so the massive boxes of cereal, nappies and everything else work out pretty well for us. It’s an awful place to be though. It’s got the kind of vibe experienced at the NEXT sale, with elbows flying around etc, but this is all year round. Every Saturday the place is heaving and while the traffic on the roads around the Bay Area is pretty bad, its nothing compared to the shopping cart traffic at Costco, San Jose.

For all my deeply-seated Coscto issues, I’ve got to give their photo-printing service some respect. Upload online. Collect with your shopping 2 hours later. Glossy or lustre (lustre, obviously). Couple of dollars per print. Living the dream.

So, we did this and got phase 1 of the pictures on the walls. Phase 1 is living room and dining room and it’s me Heather and the kids. Phase 2 is the wider family. This is equally important, particularly as we are so far away – keeping family and friends in sight and fresh in the kids’ minds is what we want.

Since the pictures went up, the place feels different – more a home than a house now. I’ve posted the pictures that went up below…