100 Posts at the DC Heron Family blog!

One of those rare whole family photos (since I'm usually the one taking the pictures)

The post that I did on Monday was the 100^th to be posted at the DC Heron Family blog. In December 2007 I wrote a post about One Year of Blogging. Although I have done a lot of posts at this blog that have been mostly pictures with some explanation, it is still a lot of posts and a milestone none the less.

Blogging at our family blog has given me a lot.

• It has given me chance to learn about blogging. Writing a blog is more different than writing in a diary or journal than you might think. There is more to operating a blog than simply posting blog entries, but this is one of the things that is most noticeable and should be the center of blog. Everything else requires time, effort, and often times a lot of learning.
• It has given me an outlet for my writing. There is something romantic about writing and something that draws me in. I have done a lot of writing in my life. From keeping journals in school and at other times in my life to writing letters to the local newspaper, to writing on the high school newspaper, to writing poems, essays, speeches, and short stories.
• It has given me a chance to give updates on the family and talk about the various things going on. I was able to communicate news about our house as we were moving in.
• It has given me a chance to write about being an American living in Germany. Sometimes I’m a fascinated by something that is different about German culture and society other times I feel like a fish out of water. I enjoy living in Germany and being able to see Europe (something that I have long wanted to do). Living in a foreign country gives you a whole different perspective on things and allows you to see places like you never would by just going on vacation there.
• It has given me the chance to relive some of the things in my life and think about what them means to me. Kind of therapeutic, how often do we just fly through life without really thinking about what everything means to us. You do things because you have to or think that you need to or for a whole host of reasons, but how often to you look at what has happened and try to make sense out of it? How often do you really allow yourself that chance on a regular basis?
• It has encouraged me to start the Systems-Overload Blog. Some of the things that I was thinking about more and more and wanted to write about didn’t really fit into the family blog any longer, so I decided to do a more professional blog and Systems-Overload if the result.
• It encouraged me to start a private blog dedicated to the memory of my mother. I haven’t had the chance to do it yet, but one of my long term goals is to create a foundation/charity in honor of my mother, this is one of my 43Things.

Below is kind of chronology of posts and topics that I have written about at the DC Heron Famiy blog….

Moving was my first post at the DC Heron Family blog and I talked about the home that we planned to buy.

We Have the Key!!! -was my second post and I shared the excitement of having the key out our first house.

I did a whole series of posts in December 2006 where I talked about the house and showed pictures. You could also see the progress that I was making in the painting and so on.

Brenden’s 3^rd Birthday- was a short little piece that I wrote in honor of one of my nephew’s birthdays.

Nikolaus Comes to Geinsheim- was a short piece written about a holiday occurring in Germany that not too many Americans are familiar with.

Anna’s Christmas Pagent 2006- was a short piece about Anna’s jazz dance group performing at a local Christmas market. I posted a video of it at YouTube and created a slide show that is also posted at YouTube.

In March 2007, I did a series of posts with a lot of pictures from the trip that we took to Ireland in 2006. There are four slide shows of our trip that I posted to our YouTube channel.

In May 2007, I wrote posts about trips that I took with my dad and Aunt Betty to Paris and Scotland. We also had our patio renovated when it was discovered that a lot of the wood was rotten and it really wasn’t safe to stand or sit on any longer.

Anna Rides Her Bike!- I write with the pride of a proud father who’s old child has now ridden a bike without training wheels. This is a proud moment in the lives of most parents that they don’t soon forget. I created a slide show in honor of the event and posted it to YouTube.

Happy Forth of July- I discuss the fish out of water theme involving celebrating a distinctly American holiday in another country and there are some nice pictures of the girls.

Also in July I did a couple of post that had pictures of the girls dressed as brides. I created a slide show of the pictures and they’re at YouTube.

In September 2007 I did a post about Lady Di’s death ten years later and the sixth anniversary of September 11^th. While September 11^th will always refer to that tragic day of American and world history, it was also at this time that my mother lost her battle to cancer.

In Honor of German Reunification- I discussed the 17^th anniversary of reunification of East and West Germany. I talk a little bit about the history and the unique opportunity to be living in a reunited Germany. It is amazing when you look back more than 20 years how much different things were.

St. Martin’s Day- I talked about the celebration in Germany and a little bit about carnival. There are several videos at our YouTube channel from the girls’ kindergarten celebration in addition one of Anna singing one of the St. Martin’s Day songs.

Christmas 2007 Newsletter- I have done a Christmas newsletter for years, this time around I decided to post it online at our blog.

In February, March, and April I did several posts about our puppy from finding out that the puppies were born, the excitement of seeing the puppies for the first time, the anticipation of picking up our puppy, and finally brining him home. After having a dog most of my life, to living the last eight years without one, it is great to have a dog again. This is “our” first family dog, the experience is totally new to Anna and Sarah, and it is nice to be able to share this with them.

April 7^th was our eighth wedding anniversary and I wrote a post about how we met and our wedding in honor of the occasion. I created a collage of various pictures from our wedding and this is included in the how we met post. I embedded a slide show that I made from the Wedding Photographer’s pictures in the our wedding post and the video is at YouTube

I think that the DC Heron Family blog will be a nice memory for the girls one day. I have enjoyed the first 100 posts and look forward to living and writing the next 100 post as well. I hope that you’ll join us. If you like the blog, feel free to add us to your rss feed or subscribe via email. We welcome your comments.