Hot Fun in the Summertime

We had a birthday party for Kirsten. Mariellen brought brownies. Sam grabbed handfuls and hid under the kitchen table.

"Well, thank you, Harvey. I prefer you too!" -- Elwood P. Dowd (James Stewart), Harvey, 1950. You have to have to have to click on this picture to see, close up, the way Sam's looking at the giant rabbit.

Imagine an identical photograph of three zoo elephants staring back at us, equally perplexed.

Caleb on the zoo playground.

In the backyard with the new water table, which replaced the old sandbox that -- after June's heavy storms -- had turned to clay.

Sam visits Joshua.

Caleb barters with Clare.

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This picture -- and our family -- turns two this week. The boys have grown up so much and so well, it's hard to look at this photo without getting a bit chokey. And, to borrow from Bob Dylan, I was so much older then...

One of the wonderful things about adoption is the number of red calendar days it gives you -- the July date when we and the boys first met, the August date they came home to us, their February birthday, and the May date when the adoption was finally finalized.

It's also remarkable -- and I suppose a picture can do this to any parent -- how much of their personalities are visible even in this early picture. And someday, I suspect, Caleb and Sam will look at this picture and think the same about us. The picture above is four people just meeting each other, and yet the story that followed (and continues to follow) is in there, too. A family from the start.