The Whole Family Together, After Church

It is so great to have Walker and Jennifer and Atticus back in the US after their year long travels in Europe, etc. And we were so blessed to also have Courtney join us from her schooling and working in California. Oh yes...we like Belle, too.  :)

Who is Who?

It is a little bit like being there...

It is great fun to see our little grandson, and to witness his growth from week-to-week, month-to-month.  It is also a blessing to be able to see the smiles on the faces of our son and daughter-in-law.  Sometimes it is hard to remember the days when we recorded on video-tape and sent movies of family to each other.  Or further back, when the written word provided the only descriptions of each others' lives.  We live in a blessed time of the world.

The Kids Visit

 Atticus loves to smile...

 and swing...

 and climb...

 and get wet...

and cuddle.

Atticus with his Father, and my Dad's Laughter

I found this on my Father's computer and was happy to see a record of his visit with my son and his family.  I was also so pleased to hear the sound of my father's laughter -- it warmed my heart a little bit.

Generations

Is this Steve at age one..... or Walker at age one..... or is this us Atticus at age one?  Can you tell who is who?

Atticus Standing Above the Water

Atticus stands above the water, with a little help from his father, sometime before the end of June.

Sunset

Sample of Activities, Lately

Our summer has been sooooo busy. Walker's graduation, church party in the park, pioneer trek, Walker and Jenn and Atticus visiting, vacation to Sanibel, psychopharmacology classes, Courtney going to a journalism workshop at the Uof F, Belle going to pony camp and performance camp...

I can't wait for summer to be over so that we can have some peace and quiet! :)

Family Picture & Toe Shoes

Jenn took our family picture....

So I took picture of her in her new toe-shoes...

Walker Graduates From Yale...

Sitting in the upper balcony at the first of several graduation ceremonies, we were blessed to be close to the phenomenal choir as they sang Hallelujah. Though the choir made the actual melodious vocalizations, the sentiment was surely heart-felt by families, friends, and the graduates themselves!

Walker graduated from college, graduated from Yale, graduated from Yale cum laude, and graduated from Yale cum laude with a wife and child at his side (one of the very few Yale underclassmen that has started his own family).

Although Yale University is 301 years old, not all of the graduation traditions are what you would call, um, mature, as the seniors unanimously wore self-styled funny hats to Bill Clinton's commencement address. (He gave a very good speech, by the way.)

The head-wear and proceedings were all a bit more formal on the following day, when degrees were confered and certificates handed out. Interestingly, Aretha Franklin also got a degree along with Walker (hers was an honorary PhD for music).

I heard that there were 17,000 in attendance for the ceremonies. I don't think I got them all in this photo, but I got a bunch of them. Can you find Waldo?

Looking at Them Looking at Him Looking Back at Them

I've said it before, and now I'm saying it again. How cool is Skype?

Our Children As Food

If Walker was a food, he would probably be a hot dog. As a grown man, now married and a father, he might disagree. He might argue that his mission experiences and his wonderful wife have improved his dietary habits so much that he is now a non-fat, whole-grain, organically-grown vegetable or grain of some sort (like cauliflower, maybe, or brown rice). But I still insist that he would be a hot dog. As a child, starting at a very young age, he would want hot dogs for meals. By age three or four he often carried a frozen hot dog, wrapped in a napkin, to gnaw on. Fuel stops during road trips were typically meal sources for Walker, as he delighted in gas station hot dogs. We figured that he had probably eaten his body weight in hot dogs by the time he started school. Furthermore, Hot-Dog kind of fits Walker's personality. He loves to be first. He is an academic standout somewhat due to genetics, partly due to scholastic opportunities, and largely due to his own personal desire to out-perform his competitors. He is humble and appropriate, but a show-off to be sure. Yes, there is a very strong case to be made for Walker being a Hot-Dog.

Belle would be ham. She eats ham samiches in her school lunches, daily, and her favorite hoagie is a ham on white bread, with nothing else -- no lettuce, no mustard, no tomato, no mayonnaise, no pickles, no ketchup, no flavor -- just ham and bread. Her samich is the easiest to make at Subway, but often takes the longest to convince the worker to construct such a barren variety of their offerings. And just like Walker, Belle's food choice is also an indication of her personality. She LOVES to have her picture taken, to perform dances or songs or piano music for a livingroom audience, and to tell a whopper of a story amongst her friends. She has been known to lead the after-school bus crowd in the singing of church songs that they had never heard before. Nobody that knows Belle would disagree that she is a Ham.

Courtney, on the other hand, eschews ham, hot dogs, bacon, hamburgers, roast, ribs, etc. I cannot recall the last time that Courtney has eaten any red meat, although her aversion seems to have started with an episode of sibling-teasing wherein her older brother was kinda graphic about the origin of bacon and her response was immediate and enduring. (It is difficult to know if the strong response was inspired by a revulsion for the meat or the brother.)

No, Courtney is not a meat of any kind. Courtney is the bread that surrounds, supports, and contains the meats and cheeses and sauces that go into a good samich. She loves to eat rolls and bread and bagels. And just as the bread is not the headliner of a samich (it's called a hot-dog or a ham samich, not a bread samich with a piece of meat), Courtney is wonderfully adept at supporting and loving those around her. She is an un-heralded source of emotional comfort and absolute responsibility in our family. She is an ever-reliable babysitter and companion to her demanding little sister. She is an uncomplaining and low-maintenance off-spring that learned how to cook for herself at an early age. She is an always-popular friend at school and church and goes out of her way to make would-be outsiders feel included.

Courtney is the middle of our three children. If Walker is an over-achiever and Belle is the center-of-attention, Courtney is the un-sung wonderfully normal, healthy, happy, beautiful, sweet, and generous child that is the bread to our family samich. We parents are so blessed to have Courtney in our family, and whether they appreciate it yet or not, her siblings are blessed more than they can know to have her as a sister.

Happy Birthday, Courtney. Thank you for being in our family.

What Are the Odds?

Walker and Jenn's car was stolen shortly after they moved to a new neighborhood. That was a couple of months ago. When Audrey and I visited them to see the baby, (about one month after the car was stolen) I got a call from the local police in New Haven who said that they had found the car. What are the chances that they would recover it at all, let alone during the three days that I would be in town? The car was in pretty bad shape when we picked it up. But then, that almost perfectly matched the condition that it was in prior to the theft. That observation leads me to another question. What is wrong with the thieves in New Haven? Why would they steal such an old, ugly, nearly dead car?

Boy What a Baby Boy

Friends of Walker and Jenn joined them on Sunday to bless and name their new baby. The friends were mostly couples, but all I have is a picture of the guys. It was great to meet them all and fun to see the support and friendship that Walker and Jenn enjoy.

<-Son. Grandson.->

Audrey and Terri are good Grandmothers, but RuthAnn is a GREAT Grandmother.

Atticus is the fifth living generation in our family. Only four are in the picture above. The fifth generation is Great-great Grandmother Gurr. She lives in Utah and is in the picture below. Standing beside her are her son (Atticus' great grandfather Dennis) and Steve.  The Frahm Great Grandparents can be seen here.