Muddy Buddy Madness

It's great having our oldest girl be more involved with and interested in family activities. She has grown this year into being a much more willing and reliable helper around the house: carrying her baby brother when our arms are full; stepping in for me when our third child tests my patience; being an attentive and knowledge-sharing big sister for Our Little Mouse at school.

In keeping with these traditions, Goose really stepped up to the plate this Christmas season for one of our family's holiday traditions: making muddy buddies. Before I met Becky, I had never heard of this treat (rice or corn chex, sugar, chocolate, M&M's stuffed in a bag). They love them, as do most people who receive a bag as a gift. It's a relatively drawn-out process. Our kitchen turns into a messy disaster of sweet goodness. My job is to document the assembly line, deliver to friends at work, and clean up.

Everyone else gets the fun parts; I'm fine with that. On to the exhibits of this year's madness:

 

This year, our troupe made dozens of bags, which we distributed at school; at Girl Scouts; at my office; to our recycling and garbage workers; to the mailman; to friends; at church, etc. We also went caroling around our neighborhood...

 

...not just once (with some of Timo's co-workers and members of an a capella group)

 

...not just twice (with our terrific sister missionaries)

 

...but thrice, and handed some bags out. We still have a few bags, ear-marked for a few people we did not see in time for Christmas. In addition, on many bags, we included a pass- along card for our church's Share the Gift video about Jesus. It was a simple, nice touch to share our faith with others who mean a lot to our family.

 

Having Goose's extra hands made this tradition, from start to finish, much more fun and took less time. Thanks for your help, sweetheart!

 

"We're back!"

So declared my wife tonight after our kids went to bed (later than I'd prefer, as usual). She then launched into a litany recap of our evening:

"I made dinner.
We had the new sister missionaries over for dinner.
We also had a new young couple in our ward here, doing their laundry and eating with us.
Grouse kept falling asleep in his high chair, which was so cute to see.
And Moose pooped his pants!"

 

Becky (and I) are thrilled to be in this new era of family life, where once again we feel like we have sufficient breathing room (at times) to entertain guests in our home. Aside from family and an assortment of young missionaries, we really haven't had anyone over to dinner in more than a year. With the impending arrival of Baby Grouse, and then once he was here, we just felt the need, more than with any of our other combinations of kids, to hunker down and survive, to manage only the most essential day-to-day stuff.  

 

We've missed having people over. In our salad days--when we had no kids, or at convenient times with 1, 2, and/or 3 kids when we felt up to it, we used to have loads of friends over to our home.

 

I'm glad we gave ourselves and our family this time-off from an activity that we got a lot of enjoyment out of. We all needed it, and now that we feel like we've re-surfaced, we are excited to get back to this activity. It's also a sign that, in a larger sense, we are moving on to a new stage of family-of-six life, where our baby can be distracted long enough for us to prepare a meal that doesn't involve cereal, pizza, or pasta! Let the good times roll!

Starter-standing

Look at Baby Grouse's newest trick! About a week ago, he started trying to stand. He can stand totally unassisted for, at most, five seconds before a) he gets too unsteady or b) he gets too happily excited by the reactions of his two parents and his three older siblings.

I mean, take a look at that face! He is so proud of himself and his newest, work-in-progress trick! That is Becky's right hand in the far-right of the last photo, as we visited a Christmas- decorated park nearby and mailed our letters to Santa Claus.

Go, Baby Grouse! I bet you'll be standing for up to a minute by Christmas.

Cover your eyes

 

Why would our girls be either covering their face with a scarf or building a fort out of cereal boxes as they ate breakfast at our kitchen's island counter?

 

One hint: It was Thanksgiving morning.

 

No, they weren't trying to avoid looking at their Papa's belly full of egg nog, left-over Halloween candy, and cookies. No, their attempts to block their gaze were not a reflection on Becky's cooking.

 

Give up?

 

Take a look at what sight greeted our girls across the kitchen:



 

They were grossed-out by having the southern end of a northern-bound turkey leering at them from near our fridge and sink. For kids like ours (and really, most any kid on the planet), any reason to make jokes about "the back door" is a good enough reason. However, when confronted with real-time evidence, they exaggeratingly go to the other extreme and get all on-the-verge-of-barfing.  

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Believe

 

"Santa, I now [know] you are real! Love, Caroline"

 

Our oldest little girl made this card for Santa Claus earlier this week. I am hoping that she makes it through this Christmas believing in Saint Nick. A few friends at school have already told her the alternate theory about him, and Goose has passed on their comments to us, out of the blue, a couple times. She hasn't asked us directly; in fact, she hasn't asked us anything about it. But Goose is probing, looking for reassurance in our words and our facial reactions when she springs her friends' comments on us. 

 

I think she's on the fence about Santa. As this card attests, she believes. She wants to believe. She wants it to be real and true and magical. I love her innocence. I love the magic of Christmas, and I just hope that when the alternate theory about Saint Nick sinks in, that he and Christmas will still hold special places in my first-born child's heart.

 

Surely it will.

 

But it won't be the same.

The Mouse is on Facebook

Make that, her own version of Facebook. At the beginning of this month, she came down with croup and was home sick for two days. Mouse got ill after her big sister Goose had recovered from her own bout with croup, and Goose had come down with this nasty bug just a day after I rallied from a week of sickness.

[That explains, in part, our nearly month-long absence from blogging. It may be the longest break I've ever taken].

On Monday of Mouse's being home, Becky sent me a text with this image below. The text read: Mouse just told me that she made her own Facebook! See, she doesn't look 100% in this picture. Years from now, long after I've forgotten that our six-year-old caught croup, I can look at this photo and still confidently remember, just by the look on her face, that she was under the weather at this time.

 

What puzzles us is, How does Mouse know about Facebook?

 

I don't have a smartphone (and I'm glad about that, more and more), so it's not like I am walking around with instantaneous Internet access or sneaking checking Facebook. I've never shown Facebook to our kids. Those among our vanishing cabal of readers who are Facebook friends with us will surely also know that my wife is never on Facebook. Maybe, like most things unsavory and time-wasting, she's heard about Facebook on the bus or at school. [How's that for a ringing endorsement of the current socio-educational status of the U.S. public education system, in one man's opinion?!]

 

Mouse's very first self-launched Facebook status update makes some mention of Sour Patch Kids. Becks snapped this photo on the Monday after Halloween, so odds are strong that Mouse rummaged through her small trick-or-treat bag and seen those gross candy items.

 

Mouse is thankfully back to normal, and this afternoon she lost her first tooth!

Not in Utah for this 9-Month-Old's Big Day

Baby Grouse has now officially spent more time out of the womb than in it! Yesterday, he turned 9 months old. He is getting more adorable, more curious about the food we eat, more prone to explore the world on all fours, but not very inclined to be out of our arms for very long. He is a clingy little dude.

Grouse refuses to hold his bottle. He drinks between 6 and 10 ounces at a time, usually sleeps through the night (knock on wood), is starting to play hide-from-Daddy when he's sitting in his high chair, and loves graham crackers. He and I have a lot of fun when I roll a ball to him on our living room floor, but he hasn't yet learned how to roll it back to me.

His only intelligible word at the moment is "Bub," which I've called both him and Moose when he was an infant. [About a year after Moose was born, my Mom told me that "bub" was what my grandpa called my dad -- a family anecdote that I wasn't aware of, but I love this ancestral link].   

For Baby Grouse's milestone 9-month mark, he was at home with us and we had a fairly typical day. This stands in stark contrast to his siblings' environment on their 9-month mark:

When Grouse's oldest sister was 9 months old, we celebrated our first Christmas as parents. We were in Utah. When his next-oldest sister was 9 months old, she was on her first visit to Utah. And when his only brother was 9 months old, we were...where else? Utah. But we've just hit the 9-month timeframe, so Delta has plenty of time to uncharacteristically lavish us (or anyone) with five (yes, 5!) free round-trip tickets to the West. 

 

C'mon, Delta...how can you resist this wide open-mouthed smile?  

 

Happy nine months, Mister Bub! We love you.

A compliment amid the chaos

Bedtime in our house, like in most any house with young kids, is a three-ring circus most nights. But on Thursday night, as I lay next to Mouse in her top bunk while Mommy read "Mr. Popper's Penguins" to her, her sister in the bottom bunk, and Moose in his nearby toddler bed, I had a quick experience that rose above all of the nightly norms of chaos, feet- dragging, whines, and piles of books.

Mouse said to me, out of the blue, "I like you more than anything else."

Looking back in time

Smithsonian magazine, to which my parents got me a subscription last winter, has a really cool feature about ongoing research at Stonehenge, the prehistoric cluster of standing stones in southwest England.

I've been casually interested in Stonehenge since I was a pre-teen. It may have started when I saw Clark Griswold back his family's rental station wagon in to the stones in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985).

Before he did Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind, comedian Christopher Guest did Spinal Tap, whose eponymous mockumentary has a fantastically terrible prog-rock song titled Stonehenge. [Swear word at 0:56 into this video].

Anyhow, in the article, leading archaeologists discuss how their current research is altering the prevailing view of Stonehenge, based on conjecture from earlier on-site research projects. And yet, for all of modern technology's advances -- and the yawning gap between what the builders of and celebrants at Stonehenge understood about their time and what we know today -- no amount of tech can completely crack the code of Stonehenge: the why's, the how's, the what for's, the when's.

That is fascinating to me -- that for all of the tools in our arsenal today, there is still so much shrouded in mystery.

What I wouldn't give to travel back in time to see this enduring structure rise, and to understand what its purpose was. As a believer in the afterlife, I hold out hope that, with all of that time-to-the-eternity degree, there will be ample chance to look back in time, to any place in time, to round out our understanding of the purpose of life on earth, in all of its variety, across peoples and places and time-periods.

That is my wish, at least.

What that in mind, here is a purely sitting-on-my-butt-time-wasting exercise that was a fun mental exercise. And let's face it, right now the only exercise I'm getting is of the mental kind. Aside from the construction of and worship practices at Stonehenge, what other moments in time would I love to see on that big flatscreen in the sky? For any modern-era entrees, I'd love to feel what it was like to have seen it live, a whole-senses experience that video highlights alone cannot achieve. 

It's an eclectic list of historic moments, from this long-time history lover:


1. The Nativity. As a person of faith, this is an obvious choice. I've often wondered what the real scene looked like as Jesus came to earth as a baby. When did the Wise Men arrive? Just how bright was the star that shone over Bethlehem? Two of my favorite Scripture passages: one, from Luke 2:6 "And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered." 

The other, from Luke 2:17-19 "And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child; And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds; But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."

In my mind, whatever Mary thought at this miraculous time is between her and God. I'd love to know it, yet that feels intrusive. There is something mystical and emotionally charged in wondering what Mary heard and felt, as the mother of a human being and as the specially appointed mother of the Son of God. 

2. A flock of passenger pigeons flying overhead. Shutting-out-the-sun, filling-the-sky flocks of passenger pigeons once were common in Canada and the United States. For ages, they were the most-numerous bird species in North America, and perhaps in the world. There were billions of pigeons in the U.S. when European settlers arrived. Some flocks stretched more than 200 miles long, taking days to pass by. Yet by the 1870s, the passenger pigeon's days were numbered, hunted nearly to extinction as a food source (unfortunately for the extremely social species, as numbers plummeted, the birds became less inclined to breed, thus creating a double whammy that foretold their demise). The last known survivor, Martha, died 100 years ago last month in the Cincinnati Zoo.  

 

3. Game 6, 1975 World Series, Fenway Park. #27, Carlton Fisk, hit a walk-off homer to tie the Series 3-3 against the Big Red Machine. One of those cases where I've seen the video countless times, but what did it feel like to have seen it live?   

 

4. Any day at the Abbey Road recording studio when the Beatles were recording "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," December 1966 through April 1967.

5. The Battle of Vienna, 1683. Polish general Jan Sobieski commanded a multi-national force of Polish, Lithuanian, Bavarian, Austrian, and other scattered (what we today would generalize as "German") forces against a numerically superior Ottoman army over a two-day slug-fest that resulted in the birth of the Hapsburg Empire (which lasted through WWI), and a key turning-point in a 300+ years-long struggle between the Muslim and European worlds for hegemony in Eastern and Central Europe.  

 

6. Humans crossing Beringia (a land mass in the at-the-time-low Bering Sea between Russia and the U.S.). Years ago, I watched on PBS "The Journey of Man," in which Dr. Spencer Wells genetically traced modern-era human DNA through blood samples back to ancestors spread around the globe. It was fascinating, and in my not-so-humble opinion a hallmark of television as an educational tool.

 

 

In the documentary, he postulated that an incredibly small number of humans survived the crossing. If I recall correctly, by the time this original group reached present-day South-western U.S. territory, there were no more than a dozen surviving members. I'd love to see that migration across vast and vastly different terrains. We live in an incredibly comfortable part of the world, in an incredibly comfortable time in human history. These people had it rough, and made it to a new world.

 

 

7. Robert F. Kennedy's "Day of Affirmation" speech in South Africa, 1966. Listen to the first minute of his speech; there's a clever political twist that I find delicious. I would have loved to have seen RFK speak in-person any time, but in particular, this speech is astounding.

 

 

 

8. The varied reactions that Native Americans/First Nations people had to seeing Europeans arrive. I'm not talking about scenes like in those many paintings depicting either mutually friendly greetings or the Native Americans as savages threatening the newbies still aboard ships. I am talking about seeing the approach of ships, of feeling what they must have felt (curiosity, trepidation, fear, uncertainty, protectiveness).

 

9. [Let me preface this: I have zero sympathy or empathy for the ideals behind this spectacle; no admiration of the loathsome political and racist ideology that ultimately killed millions of people and wrecked nations] The Nuremberg Party Rallies of pre-WWII Germany, in particular the "Cathedral of Light" formed by dozens of aerial searchlights pointed into the dark skies over ancient Nuremberg, Germany.

 

 

Perhaps by seeing it through a window of time, I might better understand something that I (and many other people) have long wondered: What about Nazism attracted so many average people to its occult, dark, anti-Semitic, racist, and violent ideology? Was it the hope of a better future? Restored pride after losing WWI? Did it tap into latent anti-Semitism on a national scale? Was it simply a case of "right political movement at the right time," or is there something in the average person that would permit themselves to be caught up in a spectacle like this even today?

 

10. Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human ever in space, 1961. Okay, so this one didn't actually happen on earth, but I'd still love to see first-hand what it was like for the first person ever to leave our planet and see it from space.

 

 

 

11. Earthrise, December 24, 1968. Taken by U.S. astronaut William Anders (ever heard of him? Me neither) on Apollo 8, the first manned voyage to orbit the moon. I can't imagine what that must have looked like for real, and what emotions stirred in the astronauts to see their home -- with everyone they ever knew and loved -- rise over the barren lunar surface.

 

 

 

What moments would you love to see if you could look back in time? I plan to write a follow-up about personal ones myself, but for now I have to live in the present.







The Ups and the Downs

Dear Mister Bub (my new nickname for Baby Grouse),

You are awfully cute and adorable. You are currently in a love-sick phase with me. You are crawling, you are grasping for things, and you are trying more foods.

But MAN you want to be held all the time! Can you please give your sore-armed parents some time to stretch their aching limbs and get their blood circulating properly after 15, 30, or 40 minutes straight of holding you?! I am much more of a push-over for our kids' demands than your mommy is, so when I put you on the floor, or in your high chair, you immediately start howling (a blood-curdling screech!) that I cannot stomach for more than a few minutes. In those times, my options are a) to ignore you and reach for Tylenol to soothe my headache or b) forgo the aspirin and just hold you.

Of course, each time, your banshee wailing and pleading suddenly stops, and you're fine. You're a smart one for someone with just two teeth in your whole head right now: You know exactly what to do, for how long, and at what volume before I relent.

Stumbled-Upon Relic

Our three oldest kids and I have taken some weekend and day-off excursions this summer and fall. I've found that I handle parenting much better when I have just our three oldest kids, or just our Baby Grouse. On the times when I've had to spend an out-of-the-ordinary amount of time with all four kids, my report card for those days and times would be a solid B- or C+. However, because Baby Grouse is now (knock on wood) sleeping through the night after going to bed without much fussiness around 7:30 p.m., I'm liking putting him to bed, having another hour with our oldest three, and giving Becky some overdue time to herself.

On one of our recent excursions, our three oldest rug rats stumbled upon a relic from some far-distant epoch in human history. Peering through a misty and foggy curtain of time, their discovery of this now-discarded artifact brought on fits of giggles and wide-eyed wonder as I explained this antique's usefulness to generations past. Goose, who is the oldest, had the most questions about the yarn I was spinning about this cast-aside device. She couldn't believe how humans had ever survived without the successive waves of innovative tools that have thrown this once-essential utility on to the trash heap of no-longer-needed human achievements.      

Ladies and gentleman, cast your eyes at the formerly wondrous and practical relic that our 21st century band of shocked yung'uns were gobsmacked at finding: 

Yes, a public payphone! "Why does it have a chain?" Mouse asked. When I explained that it is called a chord, she replied, "What's a chord?" She then, without trepidation, lifted the receiver and placed a call for "a taxi to take me to Florida!" Her kid brother Moose, not wanting to be abandoned at this waystation of antiques, got his own payphone and dialed for "a taxi to Asher's house!"

I think Goose was still so surprised and quizzically pleased about our payphone discovery that she just stood there processing my description of its many uses over the decades of its existence. "If your car broke down, you needed to find a payphone to call home," I explained. "If you would be out late, or if you were locked out of your house, or if you just wanted to call a friend while you were outside, you needed a payphone." 

I don't think they understood the concept of paying for a phone call. Of course they didn't. They don't understand the concept of paying for anything at this age, but unlike so many credit card transactions that they see us make anywhere, with a payphone you have to physically handle physical currency, physically drop it into the slot, and go from there.

This was a very amusing and eye-opening moment for all of us! 

Climbing and Reaching

Recently, Mister Moo went apple-picking with some of his preschool-aged friends and their moms to the epicenter of New England apple picking and foliage, Honey Pot Hill in Stow. He wasted no time in making himself at home on his first apple-picking excursion of 2014. Thankfully, at least from these pictures below, Moose has not (at least yet) inherited his father's and grandfather's acrophobia.

What a stunning day to be outside picking apples! Wish I could have joined them this morning. Thankfully, Becky and her friends hit up Honey Pot on a non-weekend day. I have friends who posted photos of their trip to Honey Pot on a weekend, with the caption, "We're here at Honey Pot with at least half of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!"

Grouse's First Time Apple-Picking

This autumn has been a great one in New England, with terrific foliage and mostly sunny days. Believe me, because this spectacular season is unfairly so short, I keep a mental tab on fall each year and carry it with me throughout the successive year, trying to soak up the changing colors and the sights and the first chilly nights and the scent of a home in our neighborhood that starts using its fireplace around late September. Fall's hold on my mind is strong, its nostalgic binds coiled around my heart.

Here's something else with a claim to my heart and soul: our baby Grouse. He is now almost nine months old. This is his first autumn ever, though he won't remember it. But we start family traditions young at Chez TimBeck6, and so recently Becky took our boys apple picking with some friends.

 

Savoring his first sips of apple cider?

 

Now that is one happy customer!

6!

Happy sixth birthday to Our Little Mouse! Today is her birthday. Becky and I asked her last week, "What do you want to do on your birthday? How should we celebrate?"

Her answer (I kid you not): "I want you to be my servants." 

Yes, that's right: Today, Becky and I took off our parental hat and replaced it with the hat and dressings (figuratively, at least) of servants and butlers. Maybe next year we should rent servant and butler outfits for October 8th?

Becky, me, and big sister Goose serenaded Queen Mouse awake at 7 this morning. She then instructed us on where to stand in her bedroom; which gymnastics tricks Goose was permitted to perform in Mouse's presence; who would carry her downstairs; where she would sit; which utensils, bowls, and other dining accoutrements she required for breakfast; and who would have the pleasure of driving her to school. 

It is a beautiful late summer-feel-to-it day here in New England. We're excited for more at-her-service plans later in the day. Happy sweet sixth birthday to our sweet little girl! How we love you.    

Willie Mays and "The Catch"

One of the greatest plays in baseball history occurred 60 years ago last week; September 29th, for those exact-heads keeping track at home. And I didn't blog about it! C'mon, Timo! Blogging about history, baseball, or baseball history is one of my greatest writing joys.

Willie Mays, who would have one of the best careers in Major League history, was a three-year veteran at age 23 when he raced back in the cavernous Polo Grounds in New York to basket-catch snag Vic Wertz's sure-fire triple over his shoulders. Mays' catch kept two runners from scoring and kept World Series Game 1 tied in the 8th inning; Mays' Giants won Game 1 in the 10th inning, and took the World Series--their last in New York before moving to San Francisco (where they would not win it all until 56 years later, in 2010). 

While he had one of the most remarkable careers of any Major League--and missed most of the 1952 and all of the 1953 seasons to military service--"the Say-Hey Kid" remains most remembered for this spectacular play six decades ago. You can see a brief video of "The Catch" here.  

Harvard Summer Pops Concert

In keeping with yesterday's theme of spending a rainy day posting about an event that occurred in sunnier times, this post is about our taking in the once-a-year Harvard Summer Pops concert in historic Harvard Yard. I heard about this concert a few years ago; I've been working at Harvard for almost 15 years now, and was surprised that this hadn't crossed my radar earlier. Then, each summer once I knew about it, I tried to prioritize it as a family plan but life just kept happening. Some other activity or scheduling snafu cropped up. The concert became ever-more elusive as each July passed. Its elusiveness just made me want to go even more.  

Not this year, kiddos! I found the concert date in the spring, immediately asked for the afternoon off, and put it on our family calendar. Was it worth the wait? Kind-of yes. Was it worth the logistical hurdles involved--parking, walking one mile with four kids in tow, bringing plenty of water and snacks? Yes. Will we do it again? Perhaps. 

But the important thing is that we did it, this year. Of all the years to attend, too: It's a trek escorting three kids seven and under through crosswalks, across a bridge, and around pedestrians and bikes, plus one of us pushing a six-month-old in a stroller. Becky and I must have let out simultaneous exhales of glee once all six of us arrived safely at Harvard Yard. 

Roll that beautiful concert footage!

Here is Moose showing off his response to our plea to "Smile for the camera, buddy!"

Below is Goose, proving that you can do two things at once while walking: moving forward and feeding your baby brother. We were running nearly late for the one-hour-long concert, so stopping to feed Grouse was not an option.

We weaseled our way to near-front row viewing. Truth be told, I think most people were so startled to see a family of six arrive on the scene, on time, that they all parted like the Red Sea for us. The Harvard Summer Pops Band, a collection of undergrads, graduate students, and (for the summer) Harvard staff members, were seated in rows of chairs on the concrete top step of beautiful Memorial Church. It made for a stunning setting. Memorial Church was built in 1932 to commemorate students and other members of Harvard's community who died during the First World War. Its columns also serve as the backdrop for the annual Harvard-wide morning graduation exercises (before school-specific graduation ceremonies take place in the afternoon). 

Above is the current director, Mark Olson. He was entertaining and kept the concert well-paced, which was a welcome sign on this humid afternoon. Either Becky or I snapped this picture of him right as he announced that the Pops Band would conclude this concert by playing a medley from Disney's "Frozen." Our girls obviously listened most intently to this portion of the concert than any other. 

Below, just checking to make sure that Baby Brother's airways were clear! Once he got out of his stroller, Grouse was in proximity of untold numbers of various objects that he was eager to grasp in his clutches and pop into his then-toothless mouth.

Becky smiling with glee as the Pops Band dedicates their performance of Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" to her. (Only kidding about the song dedication. But she does look wonderful!)

Above, Moose showing off his various dance moves. The top photo reminds me of Elaine Benes' much-mocked "full-body dry heave" dance from a Seinfeld episode.

Our whole gang standing in front of "The Statue of Three Lies." That is supposed to be John Harvard's likeness, in front of the west-facing side University Hall. Tourists (not Harvard students) are responsible for the well-shined look of his left shoe. Just for point of reference, the John Harvard statue has its back to Memorial Church and faces Massachusetts Hall, which was completed in 1720 and is Harvard's oldest building. 

A few years ago, in stark contrast to the overall aura of Harvard that seems to drip from every tree branch and shine off each building in the geographic and historic heart of Harvard, the University stationed dozens of brightly colored chairs throughout the Yard, hoping to make the green spaces more welcoming and inviting for spontaneous socializing and studying. Here is Mouse enjoying her carefully selected chair. 

Moose after coming in to the boys' room with me in Sever Hall, where I took graduate courses in history at Harvard Extension School long before Moose (or any of our kids) arrived on the scene! 

Becky and our girls near Hollis (built 1763) and Harvard Halls. Massachusetts Hall, with offices for Harvard's president, is right behind Becky. I hope you'll forgive my brief foray into Harvard's architectural history. No one else in my party on this afternoon of July 24th cared one iota about it! Thanks for being my unwillingly captive audience for this tour of Harvard Yard through photos.