Click on any thumbnail for a blowup, or on some, a video. You can "stop" the download of this page early if you've already seen stuff.
Slide shows: Initial PR pix, Fajardo Getaway, Park Time, PR Clouds, new: St Croix, US Virgin Islands.
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!
10/25/03 Owen's been walking a few steps for a couple of weeks, starting at 10 months old! Watching his older brothers has saved him 5 months. The first movie is taken in the morning, with just a few steps. And by the next one, taken in the evening of the same day, he's mastered it! (Both clips are about 1 Mbyte).
10/16/03 The big boys' third birthday! Pix soon, but first this: while still 2, Eli got his first press. Click on this thumbnail to see his mention at bottom right of page:
9/30/03 A great summer. Towards the end we made more trips to the Portland condo (the ones of Owen are all taken there), Hurricane Ridge with both big boys, and another trip to Canada with Eli to see Bob and Sylvia. More coming.
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7/16/03 Whole family's trip to Cannon Beach-- a logistical nightmare! Here's a short movie of Max and Eli running around on the wide, misty beach on the last morning (1 Mbyte):
And a pic of the WHOLE family, Carl and Laura and their kids, and Kim's (our nanny) daughter Anna. Taken by Kim (>1 Mbyte, sorry, I'll reduce it soon, but it's full quality if anyone wants that):
7/04/03 Max's trip to Boston and Banff last week! A 6 night trip, with an international leg! More to come, but here're the first few images: (note, some error is preventing these pics from coming out small enough...to be fixed).
4/20/03 Eli's trip to Boston! He got to see his grandparents, his aunt, trains, the Childrens' Museum-- and to spend time one-on-one with Dad. He asked a lot of good questions on the trip, including during the night approach into Logan, "Daddy, are we landing on the water?" From left to right: Eli sleeping on the flight there; with Grandma; with Aunt Wendy (who was immediately at his level); three generations of Richmond Y-chromosomes; and Eli in Copley Square with moon and Hancock Tower in background.
Owen is growing fast, VERY fast. He's literally off the chart in height and weight for four months (19 lbs). Here's one with Daddy down at the beach and then in his saucer.
And a couple from Bard and Julie's trip to Maui in March, just the two of us. The whale and its baby swam directly under our zodiac, a huge thrill. Dinner, alone!
2/24/03 Funny movie of Max divulging his age (it's a windows media-monopoly 9 file, so you might have to download the update to the player, which is exactly what they want, sorry). (If it doesn't work, try this one, which is WMA-8 and smaller).
And here's a good still of our older guys (now 28 months old):
A happy Owen in his bouncy:
He fills up that bouncy more than his brothers did after a
year! He's vocalizing a lot now, lots of cooing and yelling while inhaling
(a trick I myself didn't learn until much later).
1/30/02 More pictures soon, been very busy around here. In the meantime, here's Max's first phone message, left for his Mommy during his trip to San Diego this month with Daddy (788Kbytes). Eli enjoyed being king of the house (except for Owen) while Max and Daddy were gone, so our fears that these just 26-month-old identical twins would be lonely without each other were proven baseless...as a matter of fact, they really liked it, although they were happy to see each other, and held hands briefly on the way back from the airport (very cute). Owen is at 13 lbs or so, 90th percentile for his age at two months. At this rate, he'll be taller than Daddy next year, but I still won't give him the keys to my car, no way. We're suffering through bad viri here, collecting countless germs from pre-school, babysitters, brothers, and playgrounds. We can only hope that Owen's immune system benefits from practice.
12/03/02 Can't resist this
one:
11/29/02 Owen has arrived! Owen Sagan Richmond was born 5:05am 11/23/02 at 7.5oz and 21" in length. Julie had started labor at 9pm the previous evening, 3 days ahead of the scheduled C-section. Owen wanted out. He came into the world hardly crying, prompting us to ask the nurses whether he was breathing, whereupon he let out one or two yells. He has remained mellow and happy, being a very good baby and an excellent eater. As of this writing, he's almost back to birth weight (all babies lose a little the first week), which is about double what Eli and Max's was. Julie was a star, enduring a very long C-section and no sleep. Here are the first few pix. Click on them for bigger size. Left to right, Owen at a few hours, Owen on the second day, Owen's older brother (by 25 months) Eli holding Owen at home, and Owen's Dad holding Owen in Julie's hospital room. Max has also held Owen, and both brothers so far seem proud they have a new brother. There are many pictures of Julie, not been deemed suitable for publishing by the censor...but she looks very beautiful.
8/20/02 Finally something new on this site! The following little videos were all in August in Portland, which appears to have better parks and places to bring kids than Seattle, like the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Each video is about a megabyte of mpg, so as usual, don't use a modem. Hover over each with the mouse to get an explanation before clicking.
6/16/02 Twenty months old! I feel great on this Fathers' Day, for a lot of reasons, especially these two. Click on the first on the left for a 2.8Mbyte movie of them watching a video of themselves, then dancing to one. The next two pix are the guys after a particularly hard workout: Max on bike, Eli with weights. :)
4/27/02 Been busy, haven't updated in a while, but here're a few things, starting with a movie of Max on bongos, then Eli and Max, blooming with boo-boos from their rough and tumble lives. (Sorry the pic files are a little large). They're 18 months old.
3/25/02 This clip is a little late (it's from December), but it's fun: Eli "playing" piano. It's about 500K bytes and opens fast if you have windows media player. To the right of that, some cute bath pix from February. Note Eli politely suppressing a belch in the second.
3/10/02 A few shots after a Portland trip to see Peter, Grace and Jody, Laura's kids. Left to right: Jody and Grace; Eli and Max at the playground near Carl & Laura's house; and two shots from our kitchen.
2/16/02 Today Eli and Max's two new cousins were born-- twins Peter and Grace, to Julie's sister Laura and her husband Carl. Yes, another set of twins! People ask if it runs in Julie's family. Identicals aren't genetic. And there was no history of fraternals... but there is now!
Our guys are getting past two weeks of a miserable stomach flu. These shots are "before"-- they're skinnier now. Their routine in the morning below now includes changing their diapers while they hold their own bottles and watch the news. It's an assembly-line operation. Carl and Laura will be necessarily employing the same techniques, especially with their toddler Jody needing attention as well.
1/12/02 Pix from the family's Maui trip-- the first big trip for the whole family. Each row from left to right: Julie holds Eli in the surf and when we tried to remove him, he screamed; Max heads off, leaving a sand trail; Eli contemplates the shorebreak after encountering some sand; Bard hikes Haleakala crater, down into the clouds in the crater at 7000'; and another crater shot (there really were all those colors in there). Then the two guys in their hotel stroller; and Eli eating most of the breakfast buffet. The boys learned a lot in Maui: how to eat at the table and look at girls at the same time; how to run into the surf, scaring their parents; and most important, how to have one nap per day and sleep all night in the same room.
12/19/01 A nice movie of Julie and Max, where Julie makes Max laugh and vice versa. Eli looks on. It's very compressed: well less than a megabyte, but over a minute long. Click to run.
12/16/01 The boyz are 14 months old now, and are great fun. They make us laugh all the time. Here, inside this "embedded" media player are two very compressed videos: Max following a direct order; and the guys walking. Both are selectable with the "next selection" transport controls. Next to that is a rare sight on this web page: both parents relaxed. It was taken in Sedona at the first anniversary of Bard's 50th birthday.
12/03/01 For the technology buffs, here's a nice shot from Bard's studio onto the Sound, using a webcam hooked to a regular videocamera with telephoto. If you click on it, you can configure live updates. I thought of aiming a webcam at the babies, but they felt it violated their privacy and in any case was not edible.
11/25/01and 11/15/01 An early morning with Max and his Dad: I had a webcam set up, and we played in front of it. Windows media format, very small amount of bytes. Next, Eli says "Dada" in this little movie that starts with Max eating with his whole face and ends with Max just delighted; mpeg format. Right of those, Max takes a few steps (both are trying it lately); Eli pointing frequently, uses the same finger to very carefully change the channel or turn the TV off and on; and lastly, Eli the percussionist. (Note: look further below for a new movie below on 8/26/01, the Richmonds' visit).
10/31/01 One year ago the boys came home. Wow. For Halloween we put them in their wetsuits. Dad felt an unexpected surge of pride to see his sons dressed for windsurfing action. But instead of going out on sailboards, they surfed the crowd of kids and adults at the Magnolia Halloween festival. Below, wetsuit shots (Eli with socks, Max diving into books); Julie and Eli encounter an interesting guy in the crowd; and whole family with Anna, daughter of Kim, our Nanny, both of whom accompanied us. The last box on the right is a 2 min movie, mpeg, 15Mbytes, careful (set whatever player you use to buffer 5 sec at a time and it'll start playing while still downloading). Or instead click here for a 3Mbyte Quicktime that's not bad.
10/19/01 The boys are one year old, and the world is much changed. Happily, they know nothing about it, and are having a great time. On the left is a video of Eli actually moving to a beat-- it seems unlikely, but he's done it over and over again. After that some pix of the boys and their parents on their bday, 10/16.
9/05/01 A couple of B&W's of how the guys love to climb car seats, and various others (barbarian at the gate, Cain strikes Able, a new opening, and hatmen):
A set of pix by Diane Hamlin for Eli and Max's parents' anniversary: click here and here for some bath butts, or a swing session:
8/26/01 Videos, click to see the mpegs-- Eli drumming, Max in his first Boxster, and a great interaction between them. The first two download fast, but the last one is a Windows Media File, which might require you to download software to play it.
The Richmonds came to visit. Here's one of Max comforting his Grandad (Dad was a little nervous-- first time feeding a baby in at least 50 years). And next to that a movie of Wendy dancing for Eli and his reaction to it (watch out, lots of bytes, mpeg format).
7/21/01 The Boyz are having a great summer. Some new videos (mpegs unless noted):
Rattling the Cage Eli bobs against the gate and Max gets up close. Windows Media File.
How can you laugh? Eli belly laughs when I hit myself on the head.
Camping In, or Boyz in the Hood The only place to park the boys on the hard floors in a rented house in Hood River a few weeks ago. Diane Hamlin, the doula we had when the boys first came home, helps out.
3019 From the Air Another Win Media File. A neat view of our house from the air (Cessna 172).
6/21/01 "We're hungry!" video. Feed us now. Some stills: Max loves his head scratch, and Eli sleeping on the eating job (no, we don't keep them in their high chairs) :
6/10/01 Some videos
of the guys. These are little mpegs that download fast but with low
quality. The first is of Eli singing in total tiredness just before
bedtime, TV news in the background.
In the
second, Max makes a beeline for
some wires he hasn't seen before, with Eli making noises nearby. The strange Donald Duck sounds at the end are me, trying to
divert Max from his quest.
6/05/01 The B&W's, left to right: Max sees self; Max cries; a great one of Eli with his "I'm cool" expression; and lastly Max is delighted in his bath!
Here are some great pix Bob Delf took of all of us.
Click here for pictures and text from before 6/01/01 (also includes the narrative of the pregnancy).
This was visit number
