Did we mention that the Hanlons are great cooks? Well, if not we should have, and they are! We had not a moment’s hesitation when they invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner in…
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Ian’s Friends
My friends are the ones that keep going, come hell or high water, and through the ups and downs. There are a few, at least one or two, from each period in…
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Yosemite
Ever since I first saw the Yosemite Valley, during a weekend trip from Berkeley sometime during the 1976-7 school year, it has been one of those places where my mind turns when…
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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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Ian Stock (born in Buckinghamshire, England)
So what did I bring into this extended Brady Bunch? Well, first, Nick, Tom and I. We were our own little family back in 1994, living in a forest southwest of Paris,…
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Nick and Daphné were our first two High School graduates . . .
Nick with his Grandma (“Yaya”) after receiving his diploma from Scotts Valley High School in June 2004 Daphné with Alban after receiving her diploma from Harbor High School in June 2005 On the left is…
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Happy Valley School, Santa Cruz
Happy Valley School is the wonderful elementary school where Daphné and Alban started in September 1997, Tom in 1999, Charles in 2000 and Alexander in 2003. (Nicholas went directly to Branciforte Junior High School when…
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Brocéliande
In the interior of Brittany, the peninsula that is the westernmost part of mainland France, France’s Cornwall if you will, is la Brocéliande, the magic land of Merlin and, if you believe the…
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Santa Cruz, California: 1997 to present
“We’re all here because we’re not all there!” I rather like that one. But the humorous side of it really does not apply to Santa Cruz. Not that we don’t have our…
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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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2004: rough start, smooth finish
The year began with the bang of Nick having a bad car accident. He was 17 when it happened. Early on a weekday afternoon in January, he was driving alone on Granite Creek…
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Russ, Annie and Brendan, the Hanlons
Russ and I met at law school on the East Coast in the fall of 1979, introduced by my Guinness sweatshirt. He walked right up to me and asked if I’d like to share a…
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Death Valley
For Thanksgiving in 2004, the Hanlons invited us, or at least those of us old enough to be interested and young enough to be interested in spending a long weekend with the parents, to accompany…
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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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Alexander and Charles are Baptized
On August 12, 2004, l’abbé Texier, until his retirement a catholic priest in Bordeaux for over 20 years, baptized Alex and Charles in the Church of Sainte Anne de Tréal. L’abbé had retired to…
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Road Trip to Colorado in June 2004
In June 2004, after years of constant overwork, I finally had a little free time. Ah, the joys of being laid off! At the same time, Tom was on vacation with nothing…
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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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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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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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Maman Fille
This is a relationship made in heaven, although it may have been forged a little in hell. That’s often the case if you think about it. The more that you go through…
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Les copains de Marie-Hélène . . .
D’abord, les plus sérieuses, Camille et Amélie en état de grace, halloween 1999. We were spoiled by Amélie, as were the children. She was a student locally who moved in with us…
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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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2003: a job in Southern California
Again, we circulated no annual update for friends and family this year. It’s hard to remember why, but Marie-Hélène and I essentially lived apart from June 2003 through April 2004, because of the…
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Courtney and Antony tie the knot!!
On November 15, 2003, Antony Nash and Courtney Bolin FINALLY got married! Our interest in this noteworthy event is simple: the groom before the wedding, and the bride after, are family! Antony is my…
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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…