“History will be kind to me,” said Sir Winston Churchill, “for I intend to write it.” The real quote is actually longer than that, but you get the idea. That’s what I’ve…
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2009: still together, but only just!
This is our 2009 Diary, sent to friends and family at the end of the year for the Holiday Season, embellished more than a little. Happy Holidays everyone: it’s time for the annual…
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2009: Tom at the Isle of Wight Festival
In 2009, the Isle of Wight Festival was headlined by Neil Young, whom some present at the time complained was too old. We beg to differ! This odd conjunction prompted me to action.…
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2009: Daphné & Alban’s Summer Vacation in France
Daphné and Alban spent a a couple of weeks of most summers that they lived in the US with Pierre, their dad, and his family in France, mostly in and around Paris.…
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2009: A Summer Weekend in Tahoe
Alex was invited by his friend Galen, not forgetting Debra and Tony, Galen’s parents, to spend the weekend in their summer home on the west side of Lake Tahoe. That was an…
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2009 Sports
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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2009: Tom and Maureen Vacation in California!
Tom and Maureen spent the month of September 2009 in California, and for much of the time stayed with us in Santa Cruz. That felt just fine. This was his first trip back to…
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2009: Laura and Damian’s Wedding!
On February 28, 2009, Laura and Damian tied the knot during a lovely ceremony in a little park on Coronado Island overlooking San Diego Bay. They were the second couple in the next…
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2008: chugging along!
Here’s the 2008 annual update that we sent to friends and family for the holiday season at the end of the year, with a few embellishments: Happy Holidays to you and yours! One…
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2008 anecdotes
This page includes a few anecdotes and photos that don’t fit in other 2008 Journal pages. That’s all! We live in a forest in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains a…
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2008 Special Days
Many of our social events in Santa Cruz revolve around Happy Valley School. We’d been parents there for almost twelve years when this photo was taken at the Piccos’ party in December. It looks as if 2008-9…
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2008: Alban out and about!
We owe this page to Crissy, Luke’s charming girlfriend, who was kind enough to give us copies of a bunch of digital photos from her camera of Alban out and about with his friends.…
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Tom in Paris in 2008
Tom left to go on vacation after Christmas in 2007, and ended up spending the whole year of 2008 in Paris. Then all of 2009. Etcetera. He was gone. When he left…
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2008: Down the Coast
In Santa Cruz, we have our very own little esplanade where we can walk or bicycle along the ocean whenever we get the urge, West Cliff Drive. It’s about a 15 minute drive…
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The Wonderful World of DISNEY!!
“To all who come to this Happy Place, welcome!” Walt Disney used those words when he opened the original Disneyland in Anaheim California in 1955. He could have been talking to us. He was…
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Big Kids with Little Kids.
Different families have different strengths and weaknesses, different spaces of trust linking family members, and different walls keeping some of them apart. The most striking strength of our blended family, a strength which…
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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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2008 Family Portraits
Not in any particular order, this page features a collection of portraits of us in 2008. That’s what this website is all about, after all! Rather than adding good portraits to preexisting pages…
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La famille de Marie-Hélène !
Marie-Hélène’s family were kind to us all during our initial years together in France. There was a flattering curiosity about us, expressed with a French reserve but nonetheless expressed, in particular about…
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Childrens’ Parties
We have had quite a few parties for the children, but find surprisingly few photos, perhaps because a child’s party is one of those moments when the parents do not have a lot…
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2008: Ian visits aging aunts . . .
One of the pleasures of middle age has been discovering my aging aunts. Taking advantage of the low fares, I spent five February days in England and visited Aunty Vi (Violet Rose Eliza: how’s…
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Papa
I love being a dad. No doubt about it, it’s a wonderful thing to be a father. Especially in this family! But you would be forgiven for suggesting that I would be…
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Pacific Grove and Point Lobos
We have the good fortune to live about ten minutes from the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, which is at the North end of Monterey Bay on a lovely piece of California coastline. One…
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We are cat people, and this page is dedicated to our cats:
“Banane” was our first cat. Virginie Bournigal, who worked with Marie-Hélène and me at our law firm in Paris and lived in the southern suburb of Malakoff, gave her to me when…
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Charles & Alexander 1998 – 2007
Charlie and Alex shared a remarkable complicity throughout their childhood. It continues to this day, years after their parents moved apart. This page is comprised of four galleries of photos of the two…