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 boys, the first from when Alex was born in 1998 until 2000, the toddler period, the second from 2000 through 2003, and the third and fourth from 2004 through 2007.
There’s no particular reason for the dates, except that Alex was born in 1998. There’s no particular moral or message in the choice of photos: they just portray a kind big brother and an admiring little brother, doing what fun siblings do.
-
- In August 1998, with Alex still in his first year and Charlie about to turn three, at La Grée, their grandfather’s home in Brittany
-
- In the same place again, at about the same time. Marie-Hélène took the boys to La Grée that summer (and Daphne and Alban part of the time) while I hosted Nick and Tom in California.
-
- Here they are at home in Santa Cruz in early 1999, with Charlie showing the kindness that comes to him so naturally, this time feeding his little brother, just a year old, some Shredded Wheat.
-
- Alexander is getting visibly bigger in this one, taken on the deck at home in Santa Cruz in January 2000, just before his second birthday.
-
- Another one on our deck, this time in a plastic paddling pool that they played in during the summer of 2000.
-
- Jointly disguised as an in-house basketball game, again in 2000.
Here they are with Alban, Tom, Daphné and Nick, and here they are fooling around.
Another gallery, this one taken from 2000 through 2003. By the end of this one, Alex was five years old and Charlie eight.
-
- Dancing with the mannequins in a Paris department store, August 2003. They caught sight of the mannequins, and jumped right in, almost synchronized.
-
- Travelling is not necessarily stress-free. Unless you make it that way, playing with the suitcase. In the Brittany Ferries terminal in St Malo, July 2001
-
- Looks like a birthday party, maybe Charlie’s at the end of August 2001. Alex doing the shades!
-
- Another shared pleasure: chocolate frosting! At the kitchen counter at home in 2003 after the first renovations.
-
- They don’t necessarily hug a lot: boys, you know! But Alex was tired after a hectic day at Disney World in Orlando, August 2001. We dined at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney.
-
- Alex admiring Charlie making faces in a cafe in Carmel on their mother’s birthday in 2001.
-
- Here they are during our summer 2003 vacation, looking out at the streets of London from the front window of the top deck of a double-decker bus.
-
- More mannequins at Galeries Lafayette in Paris, this time racing, in August 2003. Shopping trips were great sources of amusement!
-
- In our hot tub on the deck, June 2002. There’s another taken at the same time with the boys being bad guys.
Now things are starting to evolve. Charlie had been at Happy Valley School since 2000, and Alex started kindergarden there in 2003. Charlie moved on to Scotts Valley Middle School in 2007.
-
- This was serious fun, for both of them. Even for the spectators: it was over 60F that April day in Tahoe in 2007! They enjoyed the skiing the same day, but this makeshift sledding clearly took the cake! I have no idea how they retained control of it.
-
- A little mutual finger-pointing at Carmel Mission in 2006. Don’t remember what triggered it, but look how much fun they were having!
-
- And periodically, the little brother gets beat up: such is the nature of things! But as you can see, the big brother is far from mean, even if he enjoys lording it over his bro at times.
-
- At times, Alex likes to have blond highlights in his hair, which coincidentally makes him look more like Charlie. Check them out in this spring 2007 photo during a golf round in Scotts Valley.
-
- Taking it one step further, in the other direction, here is Charlie wearing an Alex mask and standing next to Alex. What does it all mean! Well, it looks like a lot of mutual respect to me. But I’m the dad, what do I know?!
-
- Yet another variant of the sibling relation, this one taken at Courtney and Antony’s house in San Diego on Charlie’s tenth birthday in 2005. Where’s Alex?!
-
- We were wandering around Paimpont, a picturesque small town near La Grée, with grand-père and tante Lucette, when we stopped for a coffee. This apparently provoked interesting reflections on the boys’ part!
-
- Sponge Bob Square Pants and someone carrying a scythe in our living room. One of the local Santa Cruz characters can occasionally be found downtown making these for fascinated children.
-
- Charlie likes to film and take photographs, and Alex likes to help him out. Here he is in the back of his father’s Nissan with Charlie in the passenger seat. Alex is showing a lot more feeling than he would have showed if an adult took the picture!
-
- A shot from our 2007 vacation in England, this one on a showery day in Marlow at Gez Kahan’s place next to Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School, their dad’s high school. Gez too is a Old Borlasian and musician in a tribute band called Oye Santana. His home was our “Tuck Shop” back in the day.
-
- They were and are big fans of video games. This was an early edition of Rock Band, played in front of the family’s main TV in the living room. We were a bit late up-sizing to a flat screen high def TV.
-
- Something is going on here – check out their sidelong glances – but I’ve no idea what. Near La Grée during our 2006 summer vacation.
Life is not all play for small boys. In addition to parents, with their frequently unreasonable demands, there are aging relatives. This last trio of pics covers this latter side of life.
-
- With Aunty Vi in a pub in England during the summer of 2007. Aunty Vi’s full name was Violet Rose Eliza (you can’t get more English than that!), she was one of Grandma’s older sisters,.and lived most of her life near Birmingham.
-
- Here they are with Aunt Angela at a pub called the Playden Oasts near her house in Rye. Again, this was taken during the summer of 2007. Different aging relative, different side of the family (Aunt Angela was a distant cousin on my father’s side), different pub!
-
- Then there are older relatives who are cousins, not aunts and uncles, like Courtney and Antony, who are the best cousins you could imagine, for all of our crew, even though they are around 20 years older than Alex and Charlie.
I can’t complete a page about Charlie and Alex without mentioning the game that made their young lives, soccer. Each loved playing as soon as he could kick the ball. There were times when managing the soccer schedules of our whole troupe was a challenge for the parents, but it was always worth it.
Here’s a season which made Charlie very happy, and here’s a real high point for Alex.