Sunday, September 29, 2013

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09.18.13 (Wednesday after school) - Word study. The amount of homework seems to drastically when kids reach 2nd grade.

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09.15.13 (Sunday afternoon) - P reading books to Dan.

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09.14.13 (Saturday morning) - F found these papers and made this herself. She said she wanted to see how the patterns looked next to each other.

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09.11.13 (Wednesday night) - Still adjusting to the two dog walk.

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09.11.13 (Wednesday afternoon) - Best babysitter ever. She brought trinkets and string and the kids made jewelry until dinner time.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

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09.10.13 (Tuesday night) - Home.

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09.10.13 (Tuesday after grade school) - Adoption day. The fight over her name is vicious. Mathesons at war.

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09.10.13 (Tuesday morning) - Last walk to school as a one dog family. P loves the picture above because she feels it captures her "sassiness".

Friday, September 20, 2013

"Don't let us try to repeat life," he went on. "Don't let us make pretences to ourselves. Let us be thankful that there is an end of the old emotions and excitements. The excitement of searching is over for us; our quest is done, and happiness enough has fallen to our lot. Now we must stand aside and make room -- for him, if you like," he said, pointing to the nurse who was carrying Vanya out and had stopped at the veranda door. "that's the truth, my dear one," he said, drawing down my head and kissing it, not a lover any longer but an old friend.

The fragrant freshness of the night rose ever stronger and sweeter from the garden; the sounds and the silence grew more solemn; star after star began to twinkle overhead. I looked at him, and suddenly my heart grew light; it seemed that the cause of my suffering had been removed like an aching nerve. Suddenly I realized clearly and calmly that the past feeling, like the past time itself, was gone beyond recall, and that it would be not only impossible but painful and uncomfortable to bring it back. And after all, was that time so good which seemed to me so happy? and it was all so long, long ago!

"Time for tea!" he said, and we went together to the parlour. At the door we met the nurse with the baby. I took him in my arms, covered his bare little red legs, pressed him to me, and kissed him with the lightest touch of my lips. Half asleep, he moved the parted fingers of one creased little hand and opened dim little eyes, as if he was looking for something or recalling something. all at once his eyes rested on me, a spark of consciousness shone in them, the little pouting lips, parted before, now met and opened in a smile. "Mine, mine, mine!" I thought, pressing him to my breast with such an impulse of joy in every limb that I found it hard to restrain myself from hurting him. I fell to kissing the cold little feet, his stomach and hand and head with its thin covering of down. My husband came up to me, and I quickly covered the child's face and uncovered it again.

"Ivan Sergeich!" said my husband, tickling him under the chin. But I made haste to cover Ivan Sergeich up again. None but I had any business to look long at him. I glanced at my husband. His eyes smiled as he looked at me; and Ii looked into them with an ease and happiness which I had not felt for a long time.

That day ended the romance of our marriage; the old feeling became a precious irrecoverable remembrance; but a new feeling of love for my children and the father of my children laid the foundation of a new life and a quite different happiness; and that life and happiness have lasted to the present time.

- Tolstoy, Family Happiness

Sunday, September 15, 2013

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09.06.13 (Friday afternoon) - Walking to the airplane playground.

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09.06.13 (Friday afternoon) - Long Branch Nature Center.

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09.04.13 (Wednesday morning) - First day of 5 day 4s.

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09.03.13 (Tuesday late afternoon) - Wet.

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09.03.13 (Tuesday early afternoon) - Best friends.

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09.03.13 (Tuesday late morning) - Last day of summer before preschool starts at the National Zoo. The perfect weather makes it all a little bittersweet.

Friday, September 13, 2013

. . . .

"I'll tell you something funny, Hollis said, something I heard. They say that everything in the universe, the planets, all the galaxies, everything—the entire universe—came originally from something the size of a grain of rice that exploded and formed what we have now, the sun, stars, earth, seas, everything there is, including what I felt for you. That morning on Hudson Street, sitting there in the sunlight, feet up, fulfilled and knowing it, talking, in love with one another—I knew I had everything life would ever offer.

You felt that?

Of course. Anyone would. I remember it all, but I can't feel it now. It's passed.

That's sad.

I have something more than that now. I have a wife I love and a kid.

It's such a cliche, isn't it? A wife I love.

It's just the truth.

And you're looking forward to the years together, the ecstasy.

It's not ecstasy.

You're right.

You can't have ecstasy daily.

No, but you can have something as good, she said. You can have the anticipation of it.

Good. Go ahead and have it. You and Molly.

I'll think of you, Chris, in the house we'll have on the river in Bangkok.

Oh, don't bother.

I'll think of you lying in bed at night, bored to death with it all.

Quit it, for God's sake. Leave it alone. Let me like you a little bit.

I don't want you to like me. In a half whisper she said, I want you to curse me.

Keep it up.

It's so sweet, she said. The little family, the lovely books. All right, then. You missed your chance. Bye, bye. Go back and give her a bath, your little girl. While you still can, anyway.

She looked at him a last time from the doorway. He could hear the sound of her heels as she went through the front room. He could hear them go past the display cases and towards the door where they seemed to hesitate, then the door closing.

The room was swimming, he could not hold on to his thoughts. The past, like a sudden tide, had swept back over him, not as it had been but as he could not help remembering it. The best thing was to resume work. He knew what her skin felt like, it was silky. He should not have listened.

On the soft, silent keys he began to write: Jack Kerouac, typed letter signed ("Jack"), 1 page, to his girlfriend, the poet Lois Sorrells, single-spaced, signed in pencil, slight crease from folding. It was not a pretend life."

- James Salter, Bangkok

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

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09.03.13 (Tuesday morning) - The first day of 1st and 2nd grade. And the years keep flying by. (F requested individual portraits in addition to the sister pics).

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09.02.13 (Monday morning, Labor Day) - Hannah.

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09.01.13 (Sunday night) - So many good friends, all in one place.

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08.29.13 (Thursday afternoon) - Arting. Had I know T would invest so much time in one picture, I would have given him watercolor paper to use.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

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08.27.13 (Tuesday night) - Happy Birthday, Dan!!

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08.27.13 (Tuesday late afternoon) - Yes, even I tried the rope swing.

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08.27.13 (Tuesday afternoon) - Swimming never gets old.

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08.27.13 (Tuesday mid-morning) - This is relaxation.

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08.27.13 (Tuesday morning) - Dan caught a giant bass on the morning of his birthday. This was a big deal.

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08.26.13 (Monday night) - Blue light and cousin twins.

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08.26.13 (Monday morning) - We're adjusting well to lakefront life.

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08.25.13 (Sunday night) - Cousins are awesome.

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08.25.13 (Sunday morning) - Smith Mountain Lake. Piers are fun.