Can a 3-blog family exist without being redundant?

Can a three-blog family exist without being redundant?

Cam has had a blog for around nine months now. He started it last October and while he frequently includes posts about things we have done as a family, it isn't solely a Maddux/Engle family blog.

He told me awhile ago that he thought I would enjoy having a blog of my own. At the time, I didn't think I would want to or be able to post regularly and frankly, that it would make me embarrassed. But with the decision to move, drive cross-country, explore California, attend the Powell family reunion, start a new career, and get Sam settled into a new school, it seemed I would have plenty of things I wanted to share with close family and friends.

And since in the past couple of years, I have been frustrated by my inability to maintain regular, direct contact with those I care about and still have time to do the things I want or feel I need to do, starting a blog seemed worth a shot. People who are interested in knowing how things are going can go to the blog and catch-up. They can respond if they want. And while it isn't the same as just spending time together talking, maybe it is better than not talking at all?

While I haven't even announced my blog yet, I have been working on it diligently for several days - wanting to at least tell the story of our trip before sending people to it. But I have been getting busy doing new things in the meantime and the blog continues to grow. It is a lot to read already. Soon, I just need to put it out there and continue updating it as I go.

I don't expect it to be interesting to very many people - maybe close family and friends. If so, that is wonderful. Beyond that, I have started to think of it as a journal, a place to record my thoughts, feelings and activities. It will help me process and remember them and serve as a family memoir of sorts. Maybe if it is still around, Sam will enjoy looking back when he is older. Already, it is fun to look back at when Cam started his in October and reminisce.

Cam and I have been joking about how now that I am also keeping one; we are vying for the best pictures for our respective blog. Now I'm wondering what to do about recounting events we experience jointly. I thought it was fine if we both told the story of the road trip because it was such a significant undertaking and thought we'd bring different enough perspectives and observations to make each of our stories worth a read.

But this morning, Cam wrote a wonderful recap of our day, yesterday. While I probably would have written it differently, I don't know that I have enough different things to say to make retelling viable. Instead, I'd like to encourage anyone who cares to learn about what I did yesterday to check out his post from Sunday, July 2 titled Saturday's Tiburon Hike. Feel free to go back into the archives and scan for stories of interest from the past too.

The challenge will complicate itself further when Sam returns home. Before we moved, when I started my blog, I set one up for Sam with his help. It would have been awesome if he had knowledge of how to post and interest in posting before he started off on his adventuring this summer. I'd have loved seeing pictures and reading about all of the fun he had during his time in Iowa. It would have been great to experience on some level what he is experiencing along with him and next summer, looking back, it would have been fun to see how much he had grown and changed.

I'm hoping he will be interested in keeping a blog when he comes home. It think it will be a nice way for him to start reflecting on his experiences and to share them with family and friends he has in other places.

Thanks for caring about us enough to be interested enough to be reading this message. If you decide to start a blog of your own, please consider sharing it with us. We are interested in you.