Ross, Rachel, Helen, and Arthur

You may be wondering why there have been no updates to this blog or the old photo gallery this summer, and that's because early in July, I lost a pair of my server machines that caused some major chaos in our digital life. Fortunately, no data was lost, and we're still moving into the new server space, so it may be a while yet before things settle enough for more to show up. Gory details follow.

Arthur is now 2 and starting to behave like an actual human being, with fascinating and sometimes annoying characteristics. With a sample size of two, we are falling victim to the bad habit of assuming that one child will behave much like the other. Arthur corrects us on this regularly. Helen has always been socially outgoing and interested in new places. Arthur prefers the familiar and staying at home. Helen never did a lot of things like, say, drawing on the floor. Partly, because she did not have an older sibling that left their writing implements everywhere. Which brings me to my story ...

We had a family first today. Arthur, Helen, Rachel, and I all sat down to play a brief game of dominoes (a Go, Diego, Go-themed set to my eternal shame). Rachel and I believe that this marks the first time that we all played a game together, hopefully it won't be the last.

I just felt like I should record this for posterity. Arthur loves fruit (and broccoli!). He regularly demands 'GRAPES!' But also loves 'straw-ba-berries' and 'blue-bellies.'

Arthur had a great birthday yesterday. Grandparents and friends were in attendance, and he received a strange wealth of noise-making books and Thomas the Tank Engine paraphernalia. This video of Finn showing his hungry, muppet-like enthusiasm for strawberries and Arthur's cake nom-nom-nom plus in-chair dance are beauties.

YouTube link. Photos:

This was the first Easter that Arthur was really aware of. He had a good time, even though his sister managed to get to the eggs much faster than him.

YouTube link.

Uncle Gus was in town and played with Arthur pretending to be stabbed, which was novel for Arthur. The other night he was trying to get his mother to stick the knife under his arm, but she hadn't seen him playing with Gus, so I had to explain what he wanted. The video is extra-funny because at the end of the second round he decides that he doesn't want to play anymore.

YouTube link

That's the title of the article that I wrote for the GLIMPSE journal, 'a quarterly, interdisciplinary journal examining visual perception and its implications for being, knowing, and constructing our world(s).' The Winter 2009/2010 edition was their COSMOS edition, and they asked me to write a story about the Google Earth work that I have done.

YouTube link

Arthur has been a big fan of the animals on his placemat for a while, and has managed to build up an animal sound repertoire for most of them.