So we are nearly a quarter of the way through 2019 already and with another round of birthdays approaching and Xene our eldest turning 21, I have been thinking about our lives together so far and how much has changed in those 21 years.
When we first had Xene we had just purchased our first house that we ended up moving into 2 weeks before she was born, I still remember painting her bedroom with only a few days until her arrival, the lovely part is we chose white walls which we then added 101 Dalmatian Wall Stickers too, I was very much into black and white at the stage, fast forward 21 years and Lochlan is getting ready to move out of his small bedroom and behind all of his posters you will find an entire mural of 101 dalmatians that the previous owner of our current house had painted and after 12 years I still haven’t had the heart to get rid of them! Obviously our house and grounds are now much bigger but our love for dogs and black and white still continues!
Our first family car was a red Peugeot 106, it was quite a new car but had high mileage so we got it much cheaper than expected, which was quite handy with a new baby! I can remember going to pick it up with Xene in her car seat and worrying that I had clipped her in correctly. Nowadays I drive a large 9 seater long wheel base which allows me to transport the entire family, plus the dog and all the associated luggage when we go away, we have a second car that Asa uses for work but we really need to think about upgrading that, although I would prefer not to pay out a large chunk of money, so possibly a lease, although Asa would probably choose to lease a new BMW instead of a small 3 door car like we started off with!
Our first family holiday was when Xene was 5 months old, I had gone into the local travel agents (do they even exist anymore) looking for a last minute cheap holiday and they had found a lovely caravan holiday for only £109 (funny what useless pieces of information you can remember!) now ask my husband and he will tell you my geography is shocking, which is quite hard for him as he is a whizz at knowing where places are, particularly in the UK, so I excitedly came hold and told him i’d booked our holiday in Berwick-Upon-Tweed!! Which is a beautiful part of the country but rather a long drive from Norfolk, with a small baby that wasn’t particularly fond of the car! At the time Asa didn’t drive and I was breastfeeding Xene so we had to stop every few hours for me to feed her, it took us quite a long time to arrive! But we did have a lovely weeks holiday, fast forward 21 years and we still love that area of the country and Xene is now at university less than 2 hours from her first holiday !
I just wish I had started a blog when Xene was born, but actually thinking back we didn’t get the internet at home until 1999, I wonder what the next 21 years will hold!
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