Nice editing of the Flip camera, nice 5-minute summary of a week’s vacation in Mexico over Thanksgiving 2009.

Note: If for any reason you don’t see the video, click here for the YouTube original.

• I guess that all families that stay together, that stick, that have vacations together, also have their bad moments. Like a banana turned brown, sitting uncomfortably in the middle of a large display of fresh fruit. Some people remember the good, and some remember the bad. I choose to remember the good. But the banana stands out.



• Sleeping in the shadow of an early alarm, the alarm always present, threatening sleep, keeping me awake. Not sleeping. Breathe deeply. Not sleeping. Then the light, well before dawn. Laura calls, on her way. Packing, parking, checking luggage. The Parsons in order, organized. Christopher and Laura flapping loose.



• Nana is a magnet. They grab her hand, wait for her glance, show her their things. Nana takes care of them.
• Three boys in the airport. Running. Shouting. Five, almost five, and two. Leo basking in the five-year-old glow. Christopher runs ahead in the Denver airport, wearing a bright green shirt. Laura follows, Timmy runs too, I lose sight of them. They reassemble. We organize our carry-on food for the next plane.
• Paul is waiting in the lobby of the new place. Kidani, starts with Kid. Eva hugging. She says "granddad" very well.  She hugs me very well.  She hugs her Nana.
• Monday morning, I hear Paul and his two kids from under the blankets and pillows in the bed in the hallway, trying to keep them quiet, not to wake me. Instead, we walk together, four of us, for coffee in the morning quiet before the heat. Eva says "granddad" beautifully, like she particularly enjoys the r sound. She holds my hand. Paul walks with Boyan beaming on his shoulder. Disney is waking up.
• Christopher is sick on Monday morning. Laura and Christopher stay behind.
• "Scary" is an issue. Eva, squirming in Paul’s arms, trying to escape the "scary" as we wait for the Small World. The ramp for the line goes slanting downwards with switchbacks. Paul takes Eva out of the line, to her great relief, to freedom from "scary." 
• "Granddad comes too," Timmy says as he grabs my hand. Noah and Timmy and I go for the pirates while Vange and Sabrina and Leo and Paul and Eva hanging out in the kids areas, avoiding scary. He wants me to come with. I feel like a prize. We go to the pirates, walking fast, Noah and Timmy and I, cutting our way through the heat, like through the jungle with machetes.  Timmy holds my hand tightly. Timmy soaks the pirates in, glowing in the dark, pointing to everything.  Through the heat again, fast, and we do the haunted house too. Timmy holds tight, likes being scared.
• "We saw the real Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, mommy. No masks, no wigs," Timmy said, afterwards. That night we went back on the air conditioned bus through the heat at dusk to the VIP seats in the parade. We sat in the roped-off benches, front row. People asked how we got there. "Our son knows people." Timmy basked in his birthday. Characters stopped by to wish him well. The floats glided by glistening, flashing, brilliantly lit, Disney in all its mechanical magical carefully managed glory.
• Christopher was asleep long before we got back to Kidani. We decided we made the right choice.
• Tuesday morning, Animal Kingdom. Once again we split up, and Timmy grabs me like a prize, holding my hand, "granddad comes too." Noah and Timmy and I go through the river rapids ride. Timmy gets soaking wet and, despite the thick heat, it bothers him.
• Waiting at the fence for the train that goes back and forth from petting zoo, Leo looks up at me: "Granddad, uppy uppy, it’s coming, I have to see." Leo loves trains.
• Laura and Christopher woke up early Tuesday and went to the Magic Kingdom the two of them, mother and son, happily. They saw the parade. Laura found perfect seats. Christopher did Buzz Lightyear six times.
• Boyan in the swimming pool that afternoon, his worried look disappears over and over again into a beaming smile. Happy baby. Paul with Boyan. Happy daddy. Which reminds me, Paul and Eva, Paul and Boyan, different times, different places, "Daddy" and "Tatti" over and over.
• Sabrina and Noah and Timmy and Leo having fun. Sabrina asks me to watch Timmy, off on his own, squirting people with a big squirter cannon. Timmy’s grin has become engraved on his face, permanent.
• Leo over and over is swept up with the other two boys, riding their games like a surfer riding a wave. Eva watches, joins, but carefully.
• Wednesday morning, divided again, Sabrina and I take Leo on the train. We point out the mechanical memories, carefully assembled. Leo stares out intently, not talking.
• Christopher soaks in the small world, pointing everything out, one by one, look at this, look at that. He sings along.
• At Captain Hiram’s, the boys hang onto the side railing by the table, hanging out over the water, throwing crayons. They look like dogs at the windows of moving cars. There is a pleasant steady breeze.
• Christopher loves the ocean. With Laura holding and helping, he dives under waves and jumps over waves. He can stay in the ocean forever. He holds my hand, jumping the waves. 
• Friday morning, Eva and I walk to the swimming pool alone, the two of us. She holds my hand. We swim together in the pool. We talk about the slide.
• Vange takes walks on the beach, manages lunch, watches the kids for sunblock blanks, being Nana.
• In the pool with the slide, I catch Eva, like we rehearsed in the morning. And then I catch Leo, with his brilliant smiling eyes.
• Vange finds an ocean rock on the beach, a leatherish brown color, smoothed, with lots of holes, about the size of her hand. "Look," she says, "it’s like a family. It has holes, but it stays together. It is still a rock."
• Eva carefully lays out her four small princesses, the prize from Nana, counts them and cares for them one by one. Boyan runs in and grabs one, over and over, shrieking, throwing it when she protests.
• On the last day, midday Sun, we walked on the beach. All the way up and back.

Late May, 2008

Boyan at almost four months, laughing, cooing, struggling with his whole happy little body to respond. Eva dancing and smiling with twinkle eyes; Eva’s big eyes with the seeming flood of cousins, Timmy and Leo. Playing in the park, eating ice cream. Vange and Paul with four of them all day Friday, while Sabrina and I did the Princeton Entrepreneurship thing.

I need some photos … We need a better way to handle photos on this blog.

December 7-12, 2007. 

December 12, 2007 The highlight of this visit was Eva Berry’s bright-little blue-eyed sparkling smile, that can brighten up a room. Her nana brought her a frog that sang kids’ songs when she pressed his bellybutton.
She loves the guitar and the kids songs. Every morning when we woke up, Eva would go to the guitar case behind the computer table, and wait for me to play, slapping it and looking back at me.
On Monday morning we took her to the Winter Garden to hang out, look at toys, eat Miso soup, etc.
Nana gave Eva a haircut.  There was a great deal of discussion about the need for haircuts. Noticed the view of the morning, with the Empire State building in deep background.
We took a cold walk by the river on Sunday.
There’s that view again, on a cold Tuesday morning. This is the view from the main window. At night you can see directly to the lights of Times Square, although it’s a few miles away.

Paul and Milena and Eva seem to be very well situated, 37 floors up, in Battery Park, close to work, living in New York but being abloe to escape upwards to the 37th floor, high above the city.

Emily Berry was there for dinner Tuesday night, after an interview with NYU medical school.

Click here for the Amiglia album Cape Cod 2007 Click here for the Picasa album Cape Cod 2007

I drove from Philadelphia where I had a presentation with AOM. Paul and Milena and Eva flew from New York and drove from Boston. Dad and Liz had reserved a room for Paul and Milena and Eva. I stayed with them in their condo. The water was warm. The food was good, the company too. Lobster on the patio and deck, a warm breeze, swimming in the ocean before breakfast.

The drive was memorable, for me. You all said it was crazy. It sort of started with a three-hour delay in San Francisco the day before, which meant I got to the airport at 1 am so I wasn’t fussy about the red Chevrolet Impala V8 with a tailfin that Hertz had left for me. I had reserved a midsize, the smallest Neverlost available.

The next day, Friday August 3, started poorly. I had to take an ambien at 3 am to sleep, so I slept until 10, then called Hertz about the car. The nice lady on the phone said I should take it to the downtown office — just a few blocks away — and switch it. Fortunately I called first, and when I did they told me they didn’t have any midsize. Oh well. Big, red, tailfin … perfect I suppose for I95 up the East Coast from Philadelphia to Cape Cod.

My presentation was anti-climactic to say the least. Four people showed up. So it wasn’t hard, no tension, but not useful. It started at 2, finished at 5. The concierge sent me to a nice-looking Italian deli across the street for a sandwich and fruit, but it was closed, so I got some food at (gulp) a downtown 7-11. Gulp indeed.

Then it was me and the red impala and Suzie Neverlost, with “on the road again” as background music. I listened to the audible book version of “Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. I drove. I followed Suzy’s directions and she took me over a shortcut from one interstate to another, up New Jersey towards New York. I was okay with a crowded freeway heading out of Philadelphia towards New Jersey at 6 pm, but that traffic gradually faded, and I steamed up the freeway for a while happily.

As I approached New York, seeing the skyline and bridges and all, I assumed Suzy would take us to the left of the city, as indicated by Google maps. Nope. Before I had time to stop and reconsider, with me going 60 plus MPH the whole time, she took us right over the George Washington bridge into (gulp) Manhattan. It was upper Manhattan, ugly, squat, hot, threatening, and absolutely jammed with traffic. We crept slowly inch by inch through the Bronx, going about two or three miles in an hour. It was almost 8 pm before I was on the New England turnpike at freeway speeds again. Suzy said we still had almost 5 hours to go.

I just kept going. Night fell. The freeway was well lit but I slowed from 80-ish to 70-ish in the dark. The book kept going, stayed interesting. By about 9:30 I realized I’d made a significant failure to plan, I was still hurdling through Connecticut in the dark at 70 miles per hour but I was also still a full three hours from my destination, meaning that I’d get to my destination in the middle of the night with nowhere to sleep without waking up Dad and Liz, if that was even possible. I considered calling 1-800-hhonors but where was I, how could I ask for a hotel if I didn’t know where I was or where I would be? Then I decided I’d get Megan to get on Google maps and help me, but I called home and talked to Cristin, Megan wasn’t there. The prospect of sleeping in the car was not fun. I didn’t slow down though, because Suzy kept saying I still had a long way to go.

I lucked out. Around Mystic CT there was a cluster of highway motels. Howard Johnson’s had only a smoking room, Econolodge had nothing, but the Holiday Inn Express had one room left.

“It’s a handicapped room,” the guy said.

“Is that bad? Do I have to be handicapped?”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just the last room we have and it’s late enough now that we’re supposed to rent it.” It was 10:15 pm. So I got a nice clean normal hotel room and went to sleep. The car said we were 2:16 from the destination.

I was up at 7 and on the road at 8, but no luck on the 2:15 from the destination. Suzy Neverlost is totally naive about traffic, and there’s a bottleneck getting into Cape Cod around the Bourne Bridge and the Cape Cod canal that meant once again, as with New York the day before, it took me about an hour to advance three minutes on Suzy’s schedule.

So I was there about 11:15, and it was a great day in Cape Cod, alternatively cloudy and sunny, Paul and Milena and Eva were already there, the condo was comfortable, the water was warm, we had lobster sandwiches on the deck of the clubhouse for lunch and lobster on a patio restaurant overlooking a harbor for dinner. Dad and Liz raved about Eva, Paul, and Milena, all of whom were very nice, charming, good looking, hard working, and smart.

Paul Milena and Eva left after a breakfast on Sunday, but we met on the beach before breakfast to swim in the ocean. It was warm again, and Sunday was spectacularly beautiful, about 80 degrees high, low humidity, bright, blue, and, well, beautiful. We had a nice dinner at a nice restaurant, Ocean something, and dad and I sat up talking for a long time.

Monday morning was a special treat. Dad has a regular tennis game every day about 10 a.m. and he borrowed a racket for me to join. It was a bit surreal to feel like a youngster at 59, the whole group was in their 70s and 80s, they all played excellent tennis, they were also a very fun group, great spirits, joking, teasing, enjoying themselves. I was forgiven for my mediocre tennis because I was so young, or so it seemed — and I’m 59 years old as I write this. The whole thing made me happy on several levels, I’m really glad dad is doing so well, I’m glad he’s happy, I’m glad he’s healthy, and the group is a reminder to all of us that some people do well with age. These men all play better tennis than I do, they are all very much alert and aware and alive, and they are all in late 70s or 80s. For the record, dad is the oldest and the best tennis player of all.

– Tim

Click here for the google maps for this.

Last month, in Villas del Sol, I met Leo.

You know Leo? My grandson, Noah’s and Sabrina’s son, Timmy’s little brother? I didn’t, I discovered. I loved him but I didn’t know him. He was just a generic baby until that trip.

Now, however, I know Leo as a person, with a personality; like I know Christopher, Timmy, and Eva. I can feel him smile, I can feel him worry sometimes, at least by looking at his face. This is Leo Parsons. There we are in the picture, Leo and me, sharing a moment.

Leo and I shared moments. Several times I kept him company while he slept in the shade of the Palapa on the beach during the heat of the day. He was wrapped in a towel on one chaise and I was reading on the next chaise, both of them pushed together. Leo would wake up and I would see first curiosity in his blue eyes, and then, quite quickly, peaceful recognition. “Oh yes, I’m on the beach, and my granddad is here with me.” He would then drift back to sleep.

Leo frequently smiled in his sleep.

When I fed Leo, he used mouth motions and sparkling eyes to establish a definite line of communication with me. He engaged me as surely as the computer engages the cellphone when they synchronize over a cable. This was not just feeding, this was also communicating. He wanted to watch me smile and react when he opened the mouth to ask me for the next bite. He connects the mouth opening with the eyes sparkling, and he wanted me to see that. He was even showing off, proud of himself. He wanted me to tell him parents how good he was. I could tell that.

Leo was getting less-than-super-healthy Mexican Comercial Mexicana baby food, which he seemed to like. His eyes told me he particularly enjoyed having his own version of junk food, the short-term escape from the law of Sundance. I could tell that.

Leo liked to wander freely around the floor, crawling, standing himself up on things like couches and tables, seeking cables to chew on, and looking for mischief. He clearly liked that much better with company, though. He wanted me not just to watch him but to appreciate him, talk about what he was doing that he wasn’t supposed to be doing. He wanted me to join him in the drama.

How much of this was Sabrina’s doing, how much Noah’s? I’m intrigued with the question. They certainly made it easy to know Leo. Was that just convenience, or were they doing that on purpose? That’s hard to tell, and doesn’t really matter.

Was this quality time or quantity time? I think you need quantity to get quality.

I’m sure this same kind of thing happened with Christopher, Timmy, and Eva, because I have the same sense of love and bonding with all three. But I’m writing now, and I’m more aware of how and when and what, so this is about Leo. Hello Leo.

June 13, 2007

Paul’s 31 and Eva just turned 1. It’s about 7 am. Paul and Eva walking along the river park happily, looking for me. She meets me happily, gives me lots of smiles, but she does keep glancing back at her daddy. He’s very reassuring. It looks like a nice day in the morning, already warm but not hot, and very blue and sunny.

First thing, we got me coffee. I didn’t get to the hotel until midnight, took until 2 to sleep, and then I woke up that morning at 6 am. The tiny beep of the cell phone receiving a txt might have had an influence, but I could have tried to go back to sleep, and didn’t want to. I have only a day with them in New York, it isn’t the time to sleep. Dement notwithstanding.

Eva loves to walk. She bounces around from place to place like the ball in a pinball machine, changing directions suddenly, looking slightly off balance. She just took her first steps a few weeks ago, but now she just loves to walk. I can see it. She takes the stroller while it’s in motion, but as soon as it stops, she wants out. She seems to be testing her new skill.

We sat for a while outside the shopping center by the Merrill Lynch World Financial Center, looking at the yacht harbor on the river. I soaked in my coffee. Eva walked about and eventually cuddled with her daddy.

We walked slowly towards the heart of Broadway and Prince, the Huffington Post offices. Slowly because Paul wanted Eva to fall asleep before we got to his office. Paul and Eva are very used to each other in the stroller. She started to fuss and he said she was going to do that for five minutes and fall asleep. She fussed for five minutes and fell asleep. She took a brief nap, but was awake again before we went up to his office.

After an office visit – nice looking offices, beautiful hardwood floors everywhere, but cramped — Eva enjoyed coffee at Balthazar’s. She walked up and down the aisles, accepting compliments. We walked back toward Battery Park, visited the apartment to say hello to Milena, then took Eva to a beautiful small park nestled between the buildings. She played in the sand. We watched our cell phones, Paul did the Blackberry, I talked to Sabrina, and Eva played happily.

Milena joined us. We had lunch together at NYSW, outside, looking at the water. Eva walked around and rediscovered a toy shop she knows, through the restaurant and down the hall, then to the left, where there is a wooden train set. She has geography figured out.

Just before dinner at Industrial Argentina. We had a respite at a park across the street, the four of us. Here’s a cute picture of Eva playing, and one of the same scene with Milena in the back. She wasn’t feeling well that evening, but she was smiling nonetheless.

It was a very good visit. I’m proud of Paul and Eva and Milena.

You who know me, imagine this, on Monday, June 11, 2007.

I’m on the plane now, more than halfway to New York, from San Francisco.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 12:45 pm.

I stayed too long on the computer in the hotel room, looked up suddenly at 10:45 without having packed, still typing.

I wasn’t on the freeway until 11:15.

I needed gas. Megan and I had been to Monterey and Carmel and back, the tank was almost empty, Hertz charges like $6 per gallon so it seemed cavalier and wasteful to not get gas. I pulled off the freeway at Holly in San Carlos, got into the gas station at 11:25. The ATM didn’t accept my card. I gave the machine a $20 and it took it, but then I couldn’t reach the tank with the pump, had to move the car, and then the ATM machine was unhappy with me, sent me to see the cashier. I wasn’t back on the freeway with a full tank until 11:35.

I drove fast. I was at Hertz at 11:55. I handed the paperwork to a person and told them to mail the receipt. I was on the rental car train at 12:05 and into security at 12:10. I was selected for special security because I had toothpaste and sunblock in my baggage. I wasn’t out of security until 12:25.

I was almost the last person on the plane. I called Megan because I had to tell somebody.

The plane sat on the runway for 30 minutes for gate hold at New York.

You take the opportunities you get. This one was because Megan’s last final was June 8 and I was going to New York on June 11. Vange and Cristin were set to join her for packing her room on June 12. So i rearranged to join her for a couple days, sort of on my way to New York.

I was thinking about Yosemite, but somebody recommended Monterey and Carmel, I think Sabrina. We decided on that. I reserved a Miata to make it more fun.

I picked Megan up Saturday morning at Slav-Dom. She’ll have to post on how good it feels to be entirely done with the second year at Stanford, the last final — Friday night from 7 to 10 pm — done. She certainly seems happy about it.

We drove to Monterey, top down for about 30 minutes until the novelty wore off. We stayed at Hotel Pacifico, walked around, saw the aquarium, had dinner (note Megan’s last post) at a wonderful restaurant in Pacific Grove called Passionfish.

More pictures are on Amiglia.

So I was noticing in Dad’s post about the trip to Latin America that it reads much more like a diary of restaurants than a trip. It made me stop and laugh because I realize we all do that in this family. Every trip we’ve ever taken can be described in a series of meals — and that is how any of us will likely describe it if anyone takes the time to inquire. I find I often forget trips– where exactly we went, what order we visited places, what we saw– but I rarely forget the food we ate. Honestly I often piece together the trip by thinking about what food we ate and then extrapolating from there. For instance, one of my strongest memories from our trip to Sweden is eating delicious smoked salmon on some island (Vaxholm?) while looking out at the water.

Now my question is, are we all nuts? (Or maybe what I’ve really revealed here is the extent to which I’m nuts). I mean I feel like other people go places and don’t come back predominately describing the food they’ve eaten. What does this say about us as a family, should we be worried? So on the one hand this kinda freaks me out because it seems highly abnormal — also its a good thing we like healthy food or this would be drastically bad for our health. But on the other hand, think of how much time everyone spend in their life eating food. Think how lucky we are to appreciate food as much as we do. I mean seriously food even colors the way I view my day as its broken up into the time chunks between meals. Everyone’s gotta eat, lucky us for enjoying it so much.