andy slides
Originally uploaded by jescope

We lived at two stations in the Highlands of PNG: Kundis and Iralya. This is Kundis. We were at each station for roughly seven years with two furloughs back to America.

Karl Slides

Karl Slides
Originally uploaded by jescope

This is where I was born - in PNG. It's not there anymore. Landslide.

Karl Slides

Karl Slides
Originally uploaded by jescope

It's interesting that early on Jes and started focusing on giraffes and monkeys for Elliot's decor. In looking through these slides from my childhood I've found both a giraffe and a monkey birthday cake. My mom was the original Ace of Cakes. I should make a book of just her cake designs. Pictured here with me are my friends Mat and Craig. I've lost touch of Craig, but mat is the midwest recruiter for the Peace Corps. It's good to see the Packer colors were in full swing - none of that Cubs nonsense.

Karl Slides

Karl Slides
Originally uploaded by jescope

Good Lord, what Milwaukee child should be wearing a Cubs hat. What were they thinking?

Karl Slides

Karl Slides
Originally uploaded by jescope

I guess I've always liked a nice button down shirt.

Some Summer Summative:

Elliot’s had some new experiences this week. On Monday our former landlady Kathy and her mother Maryann took us out for Greek food at Momo’s; it’s located by my old place in U-City. The food is wonderful and most evenings there is a belly dancer. Elliot started to cry whenever she (our dancer) walked away from our table. She was careful not to use the sword-on-head dance near Elliot. Their lamb tapas is the best I’ve ever had.

E’s had a hard time this week with his top two center teeth coming in. Tooth arrival is accompanied by a slight fever and general grumpiness. Friday day he got to spend a fair amount of time in grandpa’s pool with mom, dad, and Uncle Brad. Brad and I hit the back nine at Stonebridge and then we got to cool off at the Collinsville digs. After our swim, I unlocked two new levels on my mother-in-law’s Guitar Hero (the two after you beat Slash).

Friday night Jes was working at Third Degree, doing a paperweight class and the first demo for the monthly Third Friday event. Elliot got to experience his first opera as the The Union Avenue Opera Company sang a medley of songs from their current offering for the Third Degree crowd in an attempt to boost the door for that evening’s performance. Elliot listened raptly for the first song and then started to join in. If this were a baby book entry – which it might as well be – I should note that screaming and singing in places that echo are some of his favorite activities. He also likes to pull books off of bookshelves and to join the cat in playing with the cat’s spin-ball scratch pad – footage of this simultaneous play with the cat will win us our prize on Funniest Home Videos.

vic0061

vic0061
Originally uploaded by jescope

Many of my siblings went to boarding school in Australia, so I was a few months old by the time Vick and Phil got to meet me. This is them seeing me for the first time.

I got our family slides from dad last summer and am just now getting around to cleaning them all with q-tips and rubbing alcohol so we can make good digital scans of them.

vic0062

vic0062
Originally uploaded by jescope

This is me around Elliot's age with my oldest sister V.

bathtime with letters

bathtime with letters
Originally uploaded by jescope

Monogram Baby

4th on the lake

4th on the lake
Originally uploaded by jescope

Baby in his body glove waiting for the fireworks to start.

Summer is starting to do strange things to me. I went outside this morning to get the paper and discovered my neighborhood to be oddly populated. I looked around to see if anyone was having a garage sale, or for any other reason to explain the general crowdedness of car and lawn. The answer to the riddle is simple: it’s Saturday and everyone who is normally at work is here. It’s also a pleasant temperature, rare this time of year in St. Louis. The days are beginning to blur together for me a bit and I need to start focusing on that impending school year.

Junior is starting to get around well enough that we will have to do the next level of kid proofing. Jes and I are both… casual about our placement of objects. My biggest worry at the moment is all the loose change that seems to find its way to our floors – choking hazards abound. My second biggest worry is the child’s love of cords – we are on a mission to get them all up and away. Interestingly, if you tell Elliot “no” he listens and crawls off in some other direction. This positive behavior will not persist.

Vacation Next:

We went down to the Lake of the Ozarks last weekend. I don't have any pictures to post as we mostly shot video. It was a low key weekend. With gas prices being what they are, we only took the boat out twice and the wave runner once. Elliot liked boating - or at least liked being bounced to sleep on the speed boat. He looked like a baby burrito in all of his safety gear. Maybe I'll dig up a picture of that somewhere.

It was his first Fourth of July and his first fireworks - which he loved. We took the boat out at night to watch Tan Terra's fireworks from the water. It was too dark to capture the look on his face with the video camera, but it was priceless wide eyed wonder. After we got back to the condo he talked for two hours strait, telling us all about his adventure in baby-speak.

The other big first for the weekend was that he pulled himself up to standing using the coffee table. He has yet to repeat this feat of dexterity, but we have established precedence.

Not much to report since we've been back in town - other than that we over spent at the outlet malls.

I’m just back from the deep end of the family pool. My two sisters, my sister V’s new husband Randy, and I went up to Wisconsin on Thursday in my mother-in-law’s minivan. Vacationing bereavement provides an odd set of experiences to process. Sandy is rarely parted from her two children and husband for more than a few hours; so, for her there was both the journey of loss and the relief of temporary escape from the constant demands of motherhood. V and Randy have yet to honeymoon and this was their first post marriage trip anywhere. Jes was working and the drive is too far for E just yet.

We spent time with rarely seen and much loved family; we did vacation things like junk shopping, the cheese factory, and golf; we watched Wimbledon; we told and retold our family stories with constant revision and revelation; we celebrated the life and passing of my uncle – a great man with a lasting shadow beyond our family in the world of Wisconsin forestry and land preservation. We stood together for visitation, funeral, committal, and a graveside thunderstorm of epic proportions. We’ve returned now to our lives, a little less and a little more rich than we left them.