Standing (with support)

Tess, now eight months, loves to pull herself into a standing position -- and is so pleased with herself every time she manages it.

In Meredith's words: "Tess, you're a biped!"

New School, First Day

The fact of our move really sunk in today, as Silas arrived at a new school filled with strangers. He waltzed right in, though.

Kelley, Owen, and Bunk Beds

Kelley and Owen were our first overnight guests in San Mateo.  They were vacationing in California and spent their last day with us.

That last day was no vacation for Kelley.

She had built Owen's loft bed in NYC, so we declared her an expert and pressed her into service building bunks for Silas and Rosemary.

Meredith was hoping the bunk beds would take an hour to build.  Kelley was hoping for three hours.

Unfortunately, the manufacturer included some incorrectly-sized half-moon nuts (which hold the bolts that hold the whole thing together).

After a couple of hardware stores, we settled on cross-dowels as a replacement -- though they didn't always quite fit.

Kel and I jerry-rigged a series of great solutions and, at nine p.m., finished the bunk beds.

Looks beautiful!  It should hold up, at least until the first earthquake.

Meredith was on child-care duty that whole time.  She took this great photo of all the kids -- still playing with boxes.

Here's Owen early this morning, trying not to drop Tess.  He was successful.

Message to other New York friends (and other states, of course):  Come visit us!

We probably won't make you build anything.

Back Yard

Scenes from the back yard.  The kids are loving it.

We still go to playgrounds and parks of course, but as we expected they feel quite different from New York.

On any given day in NYC, a huge percentage of the kids' friends are at the playground and in the park.

You don't need a play date -- you just show up and your friends are there.

Here, we are lucky to see a total of four other kids at the local playground (and, at this point anyway, they are all strangers). 

Bottom picture:  Silas and Rosemary are in a rocket ship, searching for and collecting alien babies from throughout the solar system.

Teeth, In and Out

So far in California, our family has gained -- net -- one tooth.

San Mateo

We have moved to San Mateo!

Ray and Charlotte hung a lovely welcome sign on our garage.

Now that we have a garage, I guess we need some cars.

Here are the kids with Grandpa Ray and Grandma Charlotte.  (Rosemary is mid-jump.)

75

One of our final outings in NYC was the celebration of Mom's 75th birthday.

Blair and his family drove up, so Mom spent her weekend with all five grandkids -- a first.

The grandparents were here to help us move; only a few days till our one-way flight to California.

Annapolis

Tess took her first trip to Annapolis not long ago.

Sadly, the frequency of our Annapolis trips will most likely decline once we are in California.  We drove down this July for one more visit before the move.

More pictures of our trip are here. 

Rosemary, Aden, and Talia were ready to catch some crabs.

But the crabs were not ready to be caught.

Afternoon in the pool.

The two TJKs.

Charlene's Last Day

After six years and seven months, today is Charlene's last day.

We are moving to California on July 31.  I'm happy to have found a new spot for Charlene, with another lawyer at my firm. 

Charlene loves our children and they love her.  The hardest part of this move will be separating them.

Despite our best efforts to explain things, I know that on the second or third day of living in California Rosemary is going to ask, "When does Charlene get here?"

That's going to be a hard conversation.  And Tess will miss Charlene without any way of knowing why she's gone.

We are deeply thankful for more than six great years of having Charlene care for our kids.