Photographed in south-western Iceland.
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2238 kilometres or 1390 miles or 1208 nautical miles - that is the exact distance between Reykjavik and Hannover. The exact distance between us and our families. The walking distance would be around four million steps. 3.730.000 - look at that number. If you consider every kilometre a heartbeat then we are speaking of approximately 32 hours of heartbeats. Since there is no measure for the amount of how much you miss someone this is the best insight we can give into how hard it is sometimes. 2238.

We never, not one day, regretted or doubted our decision to settle down north. No 3°C in spring, no hail, no storm, no limited selection of cheese (it can be a drag, though) and no lack of sunlight in winter had us ever question this move. But let’s face it - all of this doesn’t keep us from missing our families. Our loved ones. Our old homes. The places we grew up at. The memories we made. The hot summer days, the melon lemonades, the strawberries, the BBQs on the porch, the laughter. We miss it. We miss it a lot. Building a bridge between two countries isn’t as hard this day and age as it used to be. We talk on the phone at least once a week, we send cellphone pictures back and forth, we text, we communicate via email. We try to still share as much with each other as possible. A room tour video through the new home, the fresh flowers on the breakfast table, the blooming roses in the garden, the nieces riding their first little bikes, selfies taken on a hike or proof of the snow we’re having beginning of May. Since literally everyone in the family has a soft spot for Iceland we share as many pictures of the country we love so dearly, as we can. We zoom in to the icy crystals on the ground, film seabirds circling over the ocean, we try to capture the light in all it’s incredible variety - when the sun rises, sets and the golden hours in between. And yet, it of course is not the same as actually sharing the moment.

There is something else we need to talk about. Right now, in this context… Do you remember those good old days when you took a picture and had to wait until you snapped 24 or 36 of them to then take the roll to a store to process said pictures? When you waited three days to an entire week to go back to the store and grab your envelope? The moment you opened that envelope and browsed through your photos - of all the things you captured with only one shot and from one angle to not waste your precious 24 tries? Jep, it’s been a struggle to get a really amazing shot but the overall result was always something really really special: you held a moment in your hand. An honest one, with real expressions ‘cause you did not have the possibility to try over and over, again to make it look perfect (rather than rea)l. We always loved holding pictures in our hands. We still went for film when there already were tons of digital options on the market, we until today own a film camera, an old school Polaroid and at least two Lomos. We also print out some of our most loved pictures. We've created two photo books by now, we have pictures pinned to the fridge, some framed on our shelves. To us, a 'real' picture is still worth more than an iCloud that needs additional storage space because it is full, yet again. Just the other day Caro’s mom asked Caro to print out a few pictures for her. So she could put them in a frame, to have something more ‘real’ than cellphone pictures on a mobile storage

You might not know this but our families raised us not only with a great appreciation for nature and the outdoors but with a love for traveling, living abroad even, as well. Caro’s mom resided in England for a while, when she was a girl. So did Caro’s younger sister. When Linda was 16 the family was on the edge of moving to Canada - job and perspective already given. Even though it didn’t happen it made us grow up extremely open to that kind of change. Absolutely everyone in our families loves to explore other countries. Nobody would mind building a home somewhere else. In fact, most would love to. We don’t claim to live anyones dream but we know for a fact that nobody ever took our decision badly. It’s the other way around: they are incredibly happy for us. In a way one can only dream of. So much support and understanding, so many tears of joy, encouraging words and “you made the right decision”s. We are beyond grateful for that. Even more reason to try and have everyone be a part of our journey.

So with mother’s day approaching we got ourselves a little treat, something we’ve been talking about getting for quite a while now. A portable photo printer. A beautiful little device called HP Sprocket which prints pictures on the go is finally waiting for us in Hannover - yet another reason we are looking forward to traveling to Germany in less than two weeks (next to our families, warm temperatures, melon lemonade and strawberries, of course). The printed pics are self-adhesive so you can put them straight into a book - like back in the old days when you had photo albums of all your favourite people/events/moments and holidays. Or you stick them onto your dashboard, fridge, put them into your wallet (or someone else’s). Frame them, hang them up, hold them in your hands or spontaneously gift ‘em to someone. With this little treat we will print out our most loved shots of our home by heart to create a scrapbook of moments we want to gift to our moms (and families, in general). Way more personal than cellphone pictures. Something to hold on to. Maybe it’s not gonna be 2238 photos, but at least 24. And even though we won’t have to wait for a week until they are developed they are precious, they mean something. Something like building a bridge over a distance of 32 hours of heartbeats.

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Let’s talk some facts about the HP Sprocket, shall we?

The most obvious first: it’s beautiful! Rose gold and white - it doesn’t get much better than that, at least in our humble opinion. But of course you don’t buy a device based on it’s looks so here’s why we chose the Sprocket over all the other printer options out there. It's size as it fits perfectly into every pocket (cell-phone size) and can easily be carried around on whatever adventure you’re on. Weight: approx. 170 grams. Comes with Bluetooth, so no cables needed. High print quality with a resolution of 313 x 400 dpi for the picture size of 5 x 7,6 cm. With the Sprocket app you can connect the little printer to all your social channels and get your fav pictures directly printed from your social media. Furthermore, you can easily edit your photos with the app such as adding frames, stickers, emojis and more. Now with mother’s day just around the corner the Limited Edition gift box might be of special interest since it comes with a rose gold case for the printer, a cute little photo book that you can fill with your picturesright away and 20 pieces of ZINK Sprocket photo paper. To us, this makes for a thoughtful and unique gift in a fast paced world filled with thousands of photos that are never seeing the light of day and memories not being cherished enough, anymore. You get if for under 145€ either at the HP homepage or at your local electronics supplier (MediaMarkt in Germany, for example.) There is a lot of thing we just love having nostalgic feelings for and film will always be one of them.