Bard and Julie and Eli and Max and Owen’s Page                        

Hover on any thumbnail for a description; or click for full size, or on some, a video.  You can stop the download of this page early if you've already seen stuff.  NOTE: if any of the embedded slideshows below are blank white rectangles, then your browser needs Adobe Flash player.  

3/20/10:  NEW!!  

A slideshow of the kids, from the last 4 months, and mostly at the beach.  Also included are shots from Max's trip to San Diego, Owen's to Boston,  and the family trips to Tucson and Hood River last December.   Click on any picture to bring up the Picasa page, then click on fullscreen.  (If the slideshow doesn't appear below, please click here .)

8-12-09:  Bard and Eli in Iceland!  We sidetripped from our summer break in Hood River, OR, to zip off to Iceland and Greenland.  The Picasa slideshow is below.   Highlights: Eli used crampons and iceax on a real glacier to explore crevasses and other scary ice formations; we climbed around the volcano Snaefellsnes; we saw numerous waterfalls; and took in the amazing beauty and remoteness of Greenland's Kulusuk.   We lucked out weatherwise: it was in the 60s in Iceland and fair,  while in Seattle, all-time heat records were set.   Julie and Max and Owen still enjoyed fun times at home, though, and now we're back in Hood River (more to come on that).

4-28-09:  Activities!  Beachgoing, flying, kayaking, skiing, kiteboarding, piano-playing, all in the below slideshow.

2-24-09:  Max, Owen and Bard's trip to Costa Rica.  Visit here or doubleclick on the slideshow below to see captions.

1-7-09:   A few from Fall and Winter of 08-09.  More to come.

From left: museum trips while in St Louis for Thanksgiving with Julie's family; Chanukah in Hood River; the first misleadingly minor snowstorm in Seattle; and an apocalyptic-weather skiing session on Mt Hood with 58mph gusts and pellet-snow that made Eli say, "My face is getting worn down!"   Note my and Max's ice-encrusted helmets.  More to come.

And Eli, Max and Owen's first piano recital is here, on Youtube!  They did individual pieces and then a group piece  in front of about 50 people, consisting of fellow students and very supportive parents.

10-11-08:  A few slideshows from last summer on Picasa.  Click on any one of them, then click again,  which'll take you to the Picasa site.  Then you can click on "slideshow" on the top left.

These last two are of Max and Eli and my trip to Maui in June.

01-09-08: The trips to Whistler and Kaua'i were great fun.  More soon, but here're the money shots from Kaua'i: Eli then Max getting up on surfboards!

    Yep, they actually got up.  They instructors at Hanalei Bay gave them a push at the right wave, but they were lying down on the board and were able to jump up, get in position, and stay on, all the way to the beach.  They were very excited about it.  They were angry at me for insisting on their wearing lifejackets, but I of course didn't back down.  On previous days, I was able to get some kiteboarding in, and got some air at Kapa'a (2Mbyte, Quicktime).

12-10-07: New: A brief little movie of Eli doing situps is amusing, because while taking it, I didn't notice how Max and Owen were trying to interfere.  Watch them.  The kids are in shape, though: they run up and down the stairs to the water, and do lots of situps and pushups.  We pay for it with them having excess energy all day long.   Here's the movie.

9-20-07:  A slide show from the summer.  VERY loosely organized, but pretty representative, except for the Alaska trip, which is forthcoming.  We spent lots of time in Hood River, where the boys all learned to swim in a pool with a view of Mt Adams (which Carl and Bard climbed); the kids and I camped out on Mt Hood and saw the lunar eclipse; lots of river-mud play; all six cousins got together with Julie's Mom and Laura and Carl; and lots of kiteboarding for me.  Also Mom, Wendy and Fred visited in Seattle.  Click on the little print icon at the bottom left of the bigger frame below to see the captions.  If it doesn't load, or you want to see it full screen with more resolution, click on the smaller pic below; then at the picasa website, click on the  "Slideshow" button near the top.  Full screen is worth it if you have the time.

Summer '07

6/1/07:  New: Max and Eli's Lilypond Kindergarten class had their final field trip at our house on a low tide.  Though the day was rainy and grey, the kids (all 22 of them) had a great time.  Barry, one of the parents, a former volunteer at the Seattle Aquarium, was a fantastic docent for the displays of crabs, starfish, clams, barnacles, great blue herons, eagles, and especially moon snails and their egg cases.  Suzy is shown photographing (link to her site is forthcoming, the ones in the slide show below are mine), and the party included lunch up at the treehouse.

If the box doesn't load, click here, then press the "Slideshow" button near the top.

5/07: NEW: Eli and Owen's Memorial Day trip to SF with Daddy!  We took the day/night train down, an interesting psychology experiment in how a parent takes care of two small children in a 4' x 7' train car for 26 consecutive hours...and during it Owen got a bad earache.   Result: not much sleep, but fun.  Best moment: Eli staring out the window, not able to go to sleep.  When I asked him why, he said:  "It's too interesting."  We stayed near Fisherman's Wharf and did the Exploratorium, Duck boat tour, Golden Gate, and Daddy got to kite Crissy Field near the Golden Gate in high winds, which was an adrenalin-filled experience.  We took the plane back, much easier.  See slide show below.  At the same time, Max and Mommy went to Portland.  No pictures from that, but they had a great time,  just the two of them.  I figure there are 8 combinations of kids each of us could take on a trip, including the empty set, or 16 types of trips plus one for the whole family.  So we have lots more to try out.  (If the Picasa slide show doesn't load, try clicking on the small picture below). 

SF trip, Memorial Day 07

4/07: Spring break ski trip to Whistler!  We all  had a great time, staying at a hotel right on the slopes and swimming in an outdoor pool each day after our lessons.  Then, the following week, I rented a Cirrus 22 and instructor to help, and flew it to Sunriver, OR, where Max and Eli skied and I boarded.  They were fast.  More pictures to come, but the first group below is at Whistler (Julie on snowboard, Owen after graduation, same for Max and Eli, those two jumping into the pool, Owen with the creation of a chef from Vancouver  where we stayed on way back).

The Sunriver pix:: the Cirrus and two from it on the way back: the Three Sisters (all the Cascade volcanoes were visible on the way back); and the Marshmallow Run on Bachelor (furthest right).

      And here's a video of Max and Eli skiing towards me rapidly. (2Mbytes, or the YouTube version is below-- less quality, faster download). 

As you can hear in my voice, I was fearful of them hitting me, knowing that they had only begun skiing the week before and they seemed to be coming quite rapidly.  As far as the snowboarding, I've learned to link my turns, but the cement-like snow at Bachelor resulted in multiple layers of tail-bone bruises in the process.  Eli got the same injury, but got it because he tried a big jump (!) unlike my failure to turn.  He "went slow like Daddy" on his last run because he was hurting.  Julie was doing well at Whistler, but we'll both need some good powder days to appreciate the new sport. 

12/06 through 3/07: New: no longer missing from this site: the 11/06 trip to Hawaii with Daddy, Eli and Max; the 12/06 whole family trip to San Diego; the 12/06 trip of Daddy and Owen to Baja; and the whole family trip to Hawaii in 2/07.  Plus some kiteskiing and some snow adventures with the cousins, all in the Google slide show below.  Also can be seen  here.  Or, you can click to see a bigger picture of this collage:

11/23/06:  Birthdays!   In close order, Bard's, Max and Eli's, then Owen's birthdays occurred.  One month of boy b-days for Julie! 

10/05/06: A movie of Bard, Kip and Owen acting out getting a phone call that isn't from whom you wanted...and when you see someone stupidly missing a big opportunity-- click here.  (A small quicktime version is here.)

9/14/06:  Summer adventures in Hood River ("The Gorge").    Great fun!  We white-water rafted and hiked to waterfalls, ice caves, snow fields, arid meadows and museum sculpture gardens.  Bard got to summit 12,460' Mt Adams with brother-in-law Carl, and also did a lot of kiting in pretty extreme winds (usually >30mph) because it never got less (pic of Bard at Lyle here or see my site brichmond).  The town is really attractive and kid-friendly, with great parks, restaurants, shops, and an aquatic center with a great view of Adams and warm water, deep enough to encourage swimming without being scary.  The boys spent some time at Bambinos Learning Center, a somewhat bilingual summer school.  All of these activities are shown in the following slideshow, which includes shots of all six cousins getting together to throw stones into the Columbia River,  with Julie's Mom Carol and sister Laura looking on.  A few Seattle scenes are thrown in.

Previous slide shows:  Initial PR pix, Fajardo Getaway, Park Time, PR Clouds,  St Croix, US Virgin Islands,  bday shots, new: Eli and Dad in Costa Rica (last one). 

6/14/06:   We're BACK,  via DisneyWorld ( ), for maximum culture shock, and now we're in Seattle, back at the house.  It's like waking up from a dream, or time traveling, because we left at the beginning of summer, and we've come back to the same exact time and season, a year later, and everything seems exactly the same (except that the kids understand Spanish and all of us look older).  It's cold, clean, quiet and cloudy-- all so different from San Juan.   Less adventurous, but more user-friendly.  Here are some shots of friends on the last night there (our kids plus Aubrey and Max and young Diego; Paul, Marty and me; Tracey and Paul; and Ronan and Carine and Marty and Michele):

5/29/06:   We move out tomorrow!  At the last second, I learned to kite here: That's me, with the gold kite, and my friend Ronan with the red and blue one in the background.  It's at "our" beach in San Juan.  Something clicked after a concentrated effort in Aruba, where I went again this last week with Max and Eli (more pix from that coming soon).  I can now go out and come back, to the same upwind point-- clearly a good thing! My kiting friends here congratulated me, which meant a lot to me.  I thank them for all the great tips and help and patience.  I'm wistful that the season for summer winds and easy waves is now just starting...and I'll miss these friends...and a lot of other things, as will we all.

5/17/06:  Almost three months since an update!  In the meantime, we've visited some local great places like Arecibo and the Camuy Caves, and taken side trips to Aruba, Vieques, St Maarten and Martinique.  Fun adventures at each.   I'll provide a slide show, but here are a few pics to whet the appetite (from left: the caves; Arecibo [where "Contact" was filmed and SETI is ongoing] with our friends' kids from down the beach, Aubrey and Max;  Eli with his inhaler for his bout of bronchitis; the UV index when the sun was completely vertical here recently; Eli and Max at our beach; and Owen at Vieques).   April was a month of illnesses,  capped with Julie's terrible joint pains and nail-darkening...all of them maybe Fifth Disease, a common childhood ailment that can be really bad for adults.  The kids have done great in school (one report card noted they'd learned Spanish) and Owen's teachers have cried at his upcoming departure.   Eli is swimming and Max has done it once and both have just started to boogieboard.  We were fortunate to have Julie's Mom Carol and sister Laura visit us recently too.  I've tried to learn to kitesurf, which has been tough, but am now getting short exuberant rides in both directions, albeit going downwind a lot, getting yanked violently, and crashing the kite in the water frequently. We come home to Seattle via Disneyworld (for maximum culture shock) on June 1.  It will have been just under 11 months.

2/27/06:  Eli and I went to Costa Rica last week, and had a great time.  It's so nice to spend time with a son individually, rather than being a referree for three.  But taking one away didn't reduce the burden for Julie, unfortunately, since Max and Owen went at it the whole time we were gone.  I'm grateful to her for the special time with Eli.  Below is a quick shot of Eli in front of Volcan Arenal, an active volcano near my farm there.  More pics are here in my experiment with blogging...not too successful so far, since it only allowed me to upload 3 pix at a time.  However, it's good for captioning.  If that doesn't work, use the slideshow above.

2/10/05:  Wow, it's been a long time without an update.   We've been busy!   We went on a cruise boat in December, sadly interrupted by my Dad's passing.  I took Eli and Max to the funeral in Boston, where we had to purchase coats to go out in snow.   I'll write more about it on a separate page.   School has been going well.  Recently I was not understanding a workman's request in the house here, and in desperation I turned to Eli and asked him.  He said, "He needs a ladder, Daddy."   And today in school, Max got 100% on a number dictation test.  Simple, but progress nevertheless.   Owen was the king of his preschool recently when he somehow charmed a baby lizard into remaining on his wrist for two hours, even in the car on the way home.   This month and the last finally have pleasant temps-- Julie has said she was cold on several occasions (whether or not she admits it).  The water temp has lowered to a bracing 80 degrees, compared to the 95 it was in August.  And we know about the monsoon we've been missing in Seattle.   

Back to the cruise: we stopped in Aruba, and I brought the family to the same restaurant where I had proposed to Julie in February of 1998, the day before the total eclipse.  Could it be only eight years from popping that question to the result on the left below?  Then, next pic,  Bob Delf and friend Marla arrived for a few days-- the boys were totally excited to see him.  Next is of a couple of new friends, Ronan and Carine.  He flies for American, and is consequently absolutely the guy you want to ask kiting questions of...and the only other guy on the beach that wears a helmet besides me.  The following three are Owen, Eli and Max on the cruise boat.   They enjoyed it a lot; great Kids' Club.  We were lucky to be close to the waterline, so we could work off a few of the gratuitous cruise calories by climbing the nine floors to boat's activities several times a day.

And oh yeah!  Owen and I took a bonding trip to Aruba two weeks before the cruise.   Owen did the flying there on the 757:    And then piloted the parasail with me:

11/28/05:   In the new slide show above ("bday shots"),  Owen is shown holding a paper on which he wrote his name (pretty scrambled, but he was still 2!); friends and their twins at Max and Eli's party; the big inflated slide; and some fudge-sundae-gorging at Owen's dinner.  Below: a recent shot of all three at local Parque Indios; and Owen "using" the GPS at El Yunque, a USFS-maintained rain forest park,  where the whole family did a hike.  Owen performed well, only melting down in sight of the car on the return leg.  It was nice to get some solitude and quiet on this island of 4M people.  The trails were easy-to-walk cement, with many waterfalls and huge bamboo-trees.   Since it's only 45 minutes away, we'll be back.  

10/29/05 and Halloween: The big boys (Max and Eli, newly 5) are in a new school-- Parque Infantil.  And they've been promoted; they're now in K instead of Pre-K (we insisted, because there were too many very young kids in the Pre-K).  Here  they're in the halloween costumes at a party at the new school.  We have hopes that it will be better than Academia San Jorge, where things were just too chaotic and, frankly, unsanitary.   They say,  "It's really great, but it's the best it's going to get."    Hopefully, that's a good report.   I'm very proud of them adapting to so many new things, and switching schools and grades on top of all of it, and yet maintaining a good mood about it all.  Here's the whole family before going to a Halloween party nearby with friends: .  Note: do NOT go to the mall in Puerto Rico on a Sunday the day before Halloween and following the end of month's payday.  A good percentage of the entire population of San Juan was at the big one,  Plaza Las Americas,  and I needed to push three kids through thousands of people to get to see "Wallace and Gromit."   Buying tickets on the internet paid off big time, however.

10/05/05  Just got back from a great trip to St. Croix,  in the US Virgin Islands and very close to PR.   The whole family was up at 2am one night because of a spectacular thunderstorm.  None of us minded, because it was so fun to watch when safe and inside: almost continuous lightning, much of it inside the cloud but some landing very nearby; and solid sheets of rain.   It's clear that the energy of the hot oceans makes storms like this, and also why hurricanes are born here.  Also the food was very good, and Mommy and Daddy got to have a dinner alone, looking out on the lights of Christainsted, below.   More pix  from St Croix in the slide show above (except for the tent in our living room).  The pic of me was taken by Eli.  There's a realistic one of Owen in mid-tantrum, despite all the beauty around him.  From the window of the airplane on the way back, you can see how dense San Juan is-- our house is on the top left somewhere, 3 miles W of the airport.  There are some pool shots, showing that all the kids are able to float, but the great news in the last few days is that ELI IS SWIMMING, sans water wings or life jacket!  He's pretty much taught himself.   Next, windsurfing.

9/15/05 We're getting more of a rhythm here.  And we have a new babysitter, Gloria (in the "Park Time" slide show above), who's wonderful and has very good language abilities.  I couldn't resist putting in a set of cloud pix.  The clouds here are truly amazing: cumulus that build straight up at any time of day, and are lit in strange, glowing ways as the strong tropical sun finds a path through them.  The last pic is a good example of that-- almost looked like an aurora as Eli held up his rake, which the cloud made fluoresce.  The pic of Julie and me at a restaurant was taken by Eli.

8/16/05 We've met a great couple who are helpful and fun to be with-- and on Sunday spent a day with them at the Westin Riomar, close to the Fajardo resort (with improved pix here).  They are sending their 19 mo-old twins (!) to a great part-time nursery school, and told us about it, and thus we're moving Owen from his baby boot camp.   He wasn't liking it, and we couldn't blame him, because there was no a/c, and a lot of noise.  However, one thing we've noticed at all these schools is how loving the teachers are.  All of the boys appreciate it, for sure.  One negative is the use of TV.  Only at Owen's new school have they learned how bad it actually is for kids' brains.

 8/09/05 First two days of school for Eli and Max, and Owen starts tomorrow.  The below is at Academia San Jorge with Maestra Elvira and classmate Nashla.  Owen will start at Colegio Loíza tomorrow.  We joke about Owen already going to college.   Both schools are Spanish-speaking, but the teachers know some English, and there's an hour a day of English instruction, which should be a total break for the boys.

Note about pictures here-- they were totally washed out and I had to darken them.  The internals of cameras, if left in air conditioning all day, get fogged up instantly in normal air and take a while to dry out.  Our landlords have added a sixth air conditioner, and we're finally comfortable all through the house, and paying an unbelievable bill for it, all the more annoying in that the solar energy here is boundless, and no one is using it.

8/05/05  Here's a slide show of our recent getaway to Fajardo, a town on the east coast of Puerto Rico.  It's really only an hour or about three giant malls away, probably less time in less traffic, which never happens.  The Wyndham El Conquistador hotel was huge (1000 rooms) but very comfortable, and had a great funicular from its cliff-perch down to a marina.  And from there, you could take a water taxi to a beautiful little island, from which you could snorkel to a beautiful teeny island (and from there you could stand in the water and be the smallest possible island).  We had a baby sitter at dinner time and were able to get a great tasting and incredibly fattening couple of meals, which we tried to work off in their very fancy spa.   I wish I had gotten a picture of Owen pulling a rolling suitcase all the way from the rooms, something he couldn't be stopped from doing.  

7/23/05  We're in Puerto Rico!  Some pictures here!  Well, there's lots to talk about, but no time to do it: we have very little babysitter help, and we certainly can't let them take care of all three kids, so one of us is always on duty.  Quick summary:  it's very hot but we're adapting; the house was in disrepair but we're repairing; and the beach is a block away, beautiful,  and we're enjoying it.   The water is aquamarine, and the sky deep blue, both made an even darker color by the bright white sand and whitecaps and the sun very high.  We live on a busy, noisy street, but the trade off is that we are walking distance from lots of restaurants, shops, Starbuxes, hotels, hospitals, etc.  

So far we've had no chance at all to interact with the culture or the people other than to try to get things fixed in the house.  So we've only seen the pure challenge and difficulty of a move to a mostly foreign place, and none of the reward or learning.  We're hoping it will come soon.

More coming.

2/25/05 Recent ones: the family trying to pose for the holiday card shot; Max and Daddy during the Phoenix trip around Xmas on a hike to Fremont Pass;  view from the Pass; with Wendy and Fred the next evening celebrating their balloon ride; Wendy and Max; Kip and Max and Eli at the Tacoma Art Museum; Eli then Eli and Max in the boat; and an amazing sunset from the house; Max in the boat; Owen out on the beach; and finally with Doug Hopkins' family on the Phoenix trip, taken by Doug. 

We've spent a lot of time on the beach on these gorgeous global-warming days in Seattle, turning over rocks to find the "mother lode" of little crabs and taking the boat to Discovery Park.  We all look forward to low tide.

If you hover over some of these thumbnails, just before you click, you can see a caption with more detail.

1/15/04  Some more shots from 2004, in no meaningful order, but from left to right: Bard, Max and Eli after our flight in a Cirrus-23, the only airplane with a parachute; Bard near Ingalls Lake, shot by Tom Schworer; Eli, Max and Claire at the Obsidian Flow on our vacation with Ken and Jeanne Boynton at Sun River; Eli in the Vancouver Art Gallery (the red pic); the Richmond 2004 Family pic; Julie pressing Owen's hands into the new cement near our new Sport Court; Ken and Bard, preserving our dark adaptation at the furthest point of the Lava Tube, 1 mile in; and finally, Owen in our little 2.5 hp boat that we can now launch from the house.

10/09/04  Wow, I can hardly believe almost six months have passed since the last update.  I'm sure we've lost most of the audience for this site!  Well, it was obviously a busy summer.  Here's some of what went on.  First, Father's Day 2004 was fun-- I took 2/3s of the boys, Eli and Max, to Mt Hood for a hike.  They weren't too bad except when I had to pick them up to dodge the snowboarders.  As we had lunch (see bagels in 2nd picture), we saw three litters of injured skiers go by, towed by the ski patrol.  The boys still ask me if it's safe to ski.

Then, in July, we went to Mazanita, OR.  Big, huge beach.  A shot of Julie and Eli, then Owen hiking with me and trying to imitate how I used the hiking stick; Owen at the beach; my windsurfing buddies back at Hood River just afterwards; Owen out for dinner; and a visit of Mom and Wendy.

3/19/04 A few pics from our recent family trip to San Diego, a new place to take care of three kids!

From left to right: Eli in airplane, four of us at Torrey Pines, Owen and sunset,  Max and Aunt Wendy, Eli and a sculpture in La Jolla, and the shark that cruised above Max and me at SeaWorld.  Here's a 2Mbyte movie of Max and Eli driving for the first time!

More coming in the form of a slideshow.

1/12/04 I'm obsolete: they are now theoretically able to access the entire world without my help, starting with this preschool program. Both have mastered the mouse, with almost no training.  The trick was to make it cordless and slow it down a little.  See the video (1Mbyte).   I might still be able to teach them a few things that are not available in cyberspace, like how to play football...wait a second, I don't know how to play football!

Click here for everything in 2003 and before.