Now here's a cute Kiwi bird

Hello everyone

My name is Tamara Valladares.

I'm 2 years old and I live with my daddy Warren and my mummy Tanya in New Zealand. I'm going to be a big sister very soon.

Here are some pictures of me. These were taken at my birthday in September. I'm a lot taller and prettier these days and I talk a lot too. I'm daddy's little girl.

California dreaming

Given that Walter and his family don't have e-mail, I thought that I might post this on their behalf.

For those of you that don't know, from left to right, Emmanuel, Felba, Mary-Jepsy, Walter, Maria and Hazel (Walter's mother and my father's cousin, thus my aunt, once removed). Walter, Thelba and the kids live in the San Francisco suburbs and this picture was (again) taken in "Eagle's Nest".

I had the pleasure of visiting them last summer on one of my 'get on a plane, travel a long way away and visit family' trips (coming to an airport near you sooner than you think...).

News from traveler Julian

Hi! To all. I am the eldest in the Paul family - part of this large family. I must admit I am a bit scared as I am writing this blog for the first time. Like Kim mentioned I can write but how well, I do not know. Well, I am working in the Travel Industry now though I did start my career in the Hotel Industry. I guess my passion for travel got the better of me. I too like my big cousin Mark love to travel. I have been fortunate to travel to quite a few places all over the globe like, Bangkok, Australia, Nepal, London, Bahamas, Lourdes, U.S.A and Canada, etc . Looking forward to my next trip in March for the Bayross/Klein Wedding in the Big Apple. I also plan to cover London (Hope to see you there Mark), Miami, Chicago and Boston. Please do join in the rest of you.

As he's in Mauritius, he won't see this for a while...

Because trying to get my father to make an entry would be like pulling teeth, I thought I'd make one on his behalf...

This is my father, engrossed with the conversation going on around him in 'Eagle's Nest', the Valladares family manse. Daz (short for Dazwal) is currently in Mauritius on business, accompanied by my mother, Ann.

Dad is a director of Bygraves, Bushell, Valladares and Sheldon (BBVS for short), a media agency (I badly describe it as buying time and space, which has a certain ring to it), based in central London. But I'll let him tell you the rest...

My Two Cents

I'm Kim ...one of the cousins in our big family. I'm known to be a lovable but very dippy bird, a bit of a dreamer, a sparkling gypsy and all round eccentric really. I generally respect and obey my elders which is why I'm writing this entry in response to a request from my eldest cousin Mark. (that last sentence will provoke some comment for the rest of the family no doubt).

I don't want to write about me or what I do or where I live, because I consider it quite inconsequential. But I will say something nice about our Big Family. As Mark said we are a family with at least 7 surnames , living in 6 countries and here's the fun part....we come in a few different colours too that's because we are MULTIRACIAL. Of course we also come with our pets - the cats, dogs, gerbils, birds, fish - although our pets have never really met each other.

We have all sort of characters here - the globe trotters, the fishing fanatics, the gossip mongers, the bossy boots, the cooking gurus, the shrewd shrews, the yarn makers, the tale tellers, the penny pinchers, the merry swingers, the serious nerds, the comediennes and the generally despised. But beneath all our physical, characteristic and geographical differences, we share a very strong bond of love and family is really important to us all, which is why although we are a mix of first and second cousins, we are all pretty tight knit bunch.

It's true that you cannot chose your family- fortunately for me, I've been blessed with the best and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

Welcome to our family!

Welcome to this family blog. I admit that it's something of an experiment and likely to be a generational thing but we'll see how it goes and if it works. Over the coming weeks, I hope to introduce the various members of my family to an unsuspecting world and to each other. But where to start?

Perhaps I should start with myself. My name is Mark, I'm 41 (nearly dead), divorced and a civil servant, living in London. That's me on the left and, as you can tell, I'm involved in politics (I'm a Liberal Democrat). My family are scattered across the globe, everywhere from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand via Edmonton (Canada), Boston (in the U.S.), London, Dubai and Mumbai, India.

But enough about me. Who'll be next?