In prior years, most of our sports have been soccer, or football as they call it in England. We’re still doing a lot of soccer, but 2009 included other sports, involving varying degrees of…
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2008: Kids’ soccer!
This was the year that our soccer became really intense, at least for the parents. Let’s start with one of the high points. On the left, at the bottom left-hand corner, wearing…
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The American Dream
Unlike RVs, cars are not a big deal for this household, except to those of driving age who for whatever reason do not yet have one. Then cars are a very big deal!…
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Stamping
During the course of our lives together, Marie-Hélène finally began to have some real time for herself as the older children became more self-sufficient. She had been the only taxi driver for all the…
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Skiing
We can’t really say that skiing is a family hobby, although Marie-Hélène’s and my first date was a ski weekend in Megève in early 1994. That weekend could have been the start of something great.…
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Music to our ears . . .
Music is one of those rare activities that both the parents and the children in our whirlwind of energy get into. The parents came first, of course. I inflicted what they now call…
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Santa Cruz County Breakers’ 95 Boys Fall Season 2005
First, a little background. Santa Cruz County puts a lot of effort into organizing its youth soccer. There are several different structured recreational teams, and several different structured competitive teams, as well as more informal arrangements.…
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Legal eagle!
Okay, we can’t argue with the obvious: being a corporate lawyer is not very sexy, and being a lawyer often evokes a certain disdain. Just in case I had not noticed this regrettable…
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Soccer: hobby #1
Look at the expression on Charlie’s face! Pure, unadulterated glee! That’s what soccer did for all our boys, more or less. Alban, our first soccer fanatic and star, started it all off…
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Pools II (2004)
We start this second look at our family in pools with Alban diving. The end of this particular dive is in the next photo. Whatever it is, if it’s done in the…
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Alban’s Hobby
One of the later hobbies to make an appearance, and not a long one at that, was Alban‘s alone. During the spring of 2004, he graduated from soccer and skateboarding to mountain biking. Well, he…
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Trains
My grandfather, great grandfather, great-uncle, great great-uncles and great great grandfather all worked for the Great Western Railway, or GWR, in England, as did the widow of one of them, for a total of…
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TV, Video Game and Computer Screens
The most difficult activities to regulate in our house were watching TV or movies and playing video games. What we can all do with our various screens nowadays is a wonder, but they are simply…
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2003: maximum youth soccer!
By the fall of 2003, we had five out of our six children playing soccer every week. That is all of the boys! For the parents, that meant at least one match per…
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Home in 2003
Marie-Hélène chose May 2003 to put together a library of photos of our home. My guess is that her doing so indicates that she was satisfied with where it was by then…
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Children have a habit of Fooling Around!
The children fooled around effortlessly, like puppies, making adventures out of nothing and drama out of less. For many years, roughhousing was key, a simple joy to be shared. But they had…
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Homework
Okay, so homework was never really a hobby, not like soccer, swimming pools, Disney, Halloween or other real childhood pleasures. It was an institutionally required activity. As such, it was unlikely to…
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Swimming Pools
Here’s Alban at Disneyland. Is this boy happy, or what!! By the way, Alban does not want to convey the impression that he cannot swim. He can now. When this photo was taken, in…
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The short, sweet life of Edgar . . .
Marie-Hélène and I disagreed on pretty much everything, when you think about it. She is the soul of discretion: I have a big mouth. I rarely worry about what others might think:…
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Photo Albums: the genesis of Ian’s memoirs
This website started out of my hobby of putting together themed photograph albums every two or three years. The hobby started in 1979: I graduated from UC Berkeley that year, and the first…
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“Everybody’s going surfin’, Surfin’ USA ..”
And if you don’t recognize that Beach Boys tune, you clicked here by mistake! Everybody went surfing except the parents, that is, and except Alex who was only a year old. Charlie,…