Photo collection

I have mentioned in the past about the ease of taking too many photos with digital cameras.

Well, I have been busy uploading the past few weeks worth of photos to the SkyDrive account (free online storage) and it crossed my mine to check the amount of photos, to see what sort of disk space we’re consuming online.

On the computer in our house, there’s 10 Gigabytes of photos related to Jack. That’s 10,000 Megabytes – 12.5 CD-R’s full, or just over 2 DVD’s full of images. In all, there’s 3833 photo of the little tyke. Admittedly, not 100% of the photos we have are online as, believe it or not, we do actually vet the photos before we upload them, removing

• any blurry or pointless photos
• any that make Claire or I look bad
• any that are almost exactly the same as the ten before it
• any with Jack’s tinkle in them

In terms of the online storage aspect, I’m not really worried at the moment, as I believe that Microsoft give you 25GB of free storage space these days with the SkyDrive accounts, which is up from the 5GB that I had when I first created the account a year or two ago. Maybe in another 8 months when we’re nearing the 20GB limit, we might have to look at creating another account maybe!!

Dragging himself up in the mornings…

Over the past week or two, Jack has taken to pulling himself upright using anything that will take his weight, such as furniture, toys, etc.

This is really good, as it shows that he’s growing and that it really won’t be long before he’s walking, I’m sure. On the other hand, it has also been a bit of a problem, as he’s now got in the habit of doing it in his cot… if we put him to bed at night and he’s not particularly wanting to sleep, he crawls over to the side of the cot and literally uses his arms and upper-body strength to drag himself upright, whilst his feet are almost running in the same direction, aiding the cause. Within seconds, he’s there, standing upright and beaming with glee, watching for that look of congratulation on our faces. This might be all ok for him, but when he needs to go to sleep, and we need him to sleep, this defiance in him seems to be making this a little worse. In the mornings also, he’s stood there, waiting for one of us to come in and get him out, but then it’s not so bad as his smiley face seems to make the mornings a little… funnier.

The problem is, that as this ability to stand upright is still new to him, he sometimes forgets to hold on at all times… and if you’re not quick to catch him, he falls down much quicker than he gets up! I think that his fall is more of a shock to him than the pain of him falling, but I suppose that it’s been more luck that he’s fallen on something soft, like his bum.

The first weekend away

Claire, Jack and I went away last weekend for the first time and stayed at Eye Kettleby Lakes in their Hazel lodge.

These ‘lodges’ are 1/2/3 bedroom luxury log cabins (of Switzerland ilk) and are fully kitted out inside with everything you need; kitchen, lounge, bathroom, en-suite, freeview tv and dvd player, and even now have free wireless internet access, if you so desire.

We went a couple of years ago to Eye Kettleby and stayed in the Holly log cabin there and really enjoyed ourselves; it’s such a peaceful place to stop and is just outside of Melton Mowbray and 15 or so miles from Leicester. The log cabins are all quiet private, each with their own hot-tub and bbq area.

A few of our friends (Phil and Lucy) are from Melton originally, and when we said that we was going to Eye Kettleby (last time) for a long weekend, they laughed, wondering why on earth we wanted to do that… but this time around, they actually came over to visit, stopped for a Chinese takeaway and a dip in the ‘tub, and they really liked it! they could see why we wanted to come back, and will probably go back again.

Anyway, the whole point was to have a bit of a break, just the three of us, before Claire goes back to work next week for the first time (properly) since Christmas 2008. AND, the other reason was to have some time together without a computer in sight, as I have been spending a bit of time on the computer recently (working on an ASP .Net MVC database app for someone.) [geek!]

We dordled around a bit over the weekend, and did exactly as we pleased – Jack was absolutely brilliant. Even though he’s in the middle of teething (and therefore crying when it hurts) he was an absolute star.

We also took Jack over to Twycross Zoo, in Warwickshire, which was about an hour’s drive away from where we were, but was told it was the best place to see lots of Monkeys, as well as other animals, such as Giraffes and Elephants – incidentally, they’re just had a new baby elephant there, hence the picture (from their website).

Admittedly, Jack was a little young to fully appreciate the day out, but nonetheless it was fun.

Also, they’re doing lots of work there, so it’s going to be much better in future. Go visit.

All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend away – with the minor exception that we pretty much took the entire house in the back of the car. It was literally packed full with baby stuff, including toys, travel cot, bottle sterilizer, etc. To be fair, it was because we had more space that we didn’t have any reason not to take something… so even if we had bought a bigger car, it would still be packed to the rafters too!