Family Pictures

Every Thanksgiving my grandpa Stokes brings out old pictures of our relatives, and he tells us a few stories. It’s a tradition I look forward to every year. Lately I’ve been thinking about Thanksgiving during my first year of law school in the context of this amazing article. Waiting for dinner to start, I picked up one of the photo albums and flipped through pictures of my grandparents camping with their siblings, my uncles in the bathtub, my parents’ wedding. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of belonging in a family narrative, even though I was only in a handful pictures (in which I always seemed to be wearing baggy overalls and acne).

I’ve been thinking about how I can teach our wee babe what it means to be part of our Perry Family. I want him to see that his life is tied to a much bigger heritage, filled with farmers, explorers, and good, kind people. Family pictures, I hope, will be a big part of that education. So, to that end:

• A few weeks ago I ordered a book through Artifact Uprising. We picked our favorite pictures from the last big vacation that Chris and I took before we become a family of three. The pictures above are from our hike to the top of Mount Slemish. The book itself is nothing special, but I hope it will be a good little book for little hands. 
• This week I narrowed down pictures from our wedding for a small wedding album, and I'm planning to order a Kolo album when their 11x14 albums get back into stock. We also got an 8x10 of my favorite picture from our wedding to hang up in the house. 
• Since we’ll have a little more time with our families this Christmas (yay for paternity leave), I’m hoping to spend time going through our family scrapbooks so that I can bring back copies of my favorite pictures of our siblings, our parents, and our grandparents. Hopefully we'll have enough to put together a simple photo album and frame a few for around the house.

britt