Family Pictures

Last week I told my mom that we were having family pictures with the Cranneys. My mom with sympathy simply said "Oh, family pictures are always so stressful." When she said this, all the years past of "your shirt doesn't match" "move over that way" "stop making faces Joseph! . . . Andrew!" "Mom, we can't have family pictures I'm 9 months pregnant" came back to my mind.

A few examples from the Donaldson's last attempt (this was right before I started dating Stephen):





and then again at our wedding:



But much to my surprise the Cranney pictures were practically painless. After the short photo shoot 30 feet from their house, there were a dozen great pictures similar to the one below. The few ruined pictures were the ADHD and awkward poses of Christian and mine. I guess some things don't change even with a changed last name.

Four degrees from Mark Spitz

Growing up, my dad used to tell me how he beat a 7-foot swimmer once. When I got married, I soon discovered that this 7-foot swimmer was my wife's uncle Brett who, according to mother-in-law Leslie beat Mark Spitz in the Jr. leagues in California when he was young. Years later, I think I remember a time when me and my brothers won my father in an informal swim race. Therefore, if I beat dad, dad beat Brett, and Brett beat Mark Spitz, then I beat Mark Spitz :)

Life in the commune

We have finally moved into the commune or better said "rabbit hutches". Kumquat, like a regular plant, loves being outside which allows us to meet our fellow commune dwellers. We've put our table on our porch so that we don't have to deal with the heat and we can make our neighbors feel more apart of the commune, or just plain awkward when they pass us by and can hear our breakfast conversations. Anyway its kind of fun to have our own place and have people stopping by to say hello. Unfortunately everyone seems to believe in showering and no one joins in when I sing kumbaya. What kind of commune is this anyway?

We're looking forward for tomorrow night when Stephen's parents and siblings return from Russia. His sister wrote a post with more details and cute pictures. . Oh and here's a new post from Stephen's brother. p.s. We found our camera in the move so we might just upload some pictures of our Kumquat soon.

Goners

Main Entry: gon·er
Pronunciation: \ˈgȯ-nər also ˈgä-nər\
Function: noun
Date: 1850
: one whose case is hopeless

I know some of you will hardly believe this, but Stephen and I are finally leaving what has been our home for the past year and a half and moving out on the 25th of this month. I'm a little sad because I'm sure we'll never find such great landlords again. I swear they are like parents to me--alright they are my parents, but still they've been great. We've loved living in their basement apartment, regular raids of their refridgerator when in desperate need of cheese, and annoying them with our constant quirky conversations and forgetting to take the garbage out. I'm still a fan of multiple generations living in the same home and hope that one day they'll come live with us, and am not to sure we won't ever find ourselves back in the basement again. In the meantime we feel it is the right timing to say farewell to happy three generation living, financial security, and hello to real life. sigh.

It would make it so much easier if we had little navy outfits to say farewell in.

Missing my grumpy old man

but loving my little happy fellow who can' sit still for one picture: