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Nicholas, born in New
York City in July 1986
Nick (1999 - 2007)
We should have a picture of Nick alone for the top of his page,
but rarely seem to have the opportunity to photograph him alone these days. For
one thing, he spent the six months from July 2004 to January
2005 in Europe,
based with his mother in Paris but wandering around from country to country and
job to job. He spent a second six months in Paris with his mom, this time from
January to June 2007.
Even when he is in Santa Cruz he's been
pretty busy. He started at Cabrillo, the local junior college, in January 2005,
and has been programming for a living since June 2005. First, he was employed by
a company in Scotts Valley, full time in the summer and part time during the
school year, and then working independently for a web applications company.
We also see him less because he moved out of the family
home in July 2005, becoming our first to leave the nest. It's a sad feeling as the children start to spread their wings,
but a teenager needs to find his or her own way in the world. And woe betide
anyone who questions that prerogative! He does come back to stay with us
from time to time, when things go wrong in the outside world, but only for as
long as he can stand it.
So we tend to see him mostly on special occasions, like
Thanksgiving. This photo of him helping Alex to some
grapes was taken at the Hanlons on Thanksgiving
2005. We also spent Thanksgiving 2004 with the Hanlons (although none of the
older children elected to accompany us on that occasion) in
Death Valley.
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Here he is with Gael, a friend from his years in
France (much younger, he is in at least two of the photos
here) who came to visit during the
summer of 2005. We went on a trip to Yosemite,
where this was taken. Nick dragged Gael all the way up Half Dome and
back in about 8 hours and 20 minutes, which we are told is a very good
pace, even for an athlete!
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Here's an interesting profile, a still from a short
film that Nick made while staying in Paris in late 2004.
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2004 was a particularly tough year for Nick, and in some sense
for the rest of us. 2003 and 2005 brought their issues, as does adolescence
generally. But 2004 was very unlucky and troubled. However much we try as
parents, things can and do go wrong.
They did for Nick that year. The state of his car was the least of his problems,
the least of our problems. We're all doing what we can to work through them.
This is about the time when parental anxieties begin to peak. What was
fooling around a few years before can become
much too serious as a child ages.
As Charlie says, Nicholas is the "plus grand enfant",
the biggest child,
but is one of five "ainés"
(older children) in this blended family: Marie-Hélène
and Ian were each the older in the Berhaut and
Stock
families of their respective childhoods, Daphné
was the older relative to Alban in the her mother's and
father's family, Nick was the older
relative to Tom in his mother's and father's family, and Charles is the older relative
to Alex in the Stock-Berhaut-Brun family.
You may find all this complicated (although we do try to explain
on this page), but they have no trouble with
it at all. Each has the simple rule that he or she is the boss no matter what
anyone else may say! Much of the time, it's a barely restrained anarchy. On ne
s'appel pas des zinzins pour rien !
On the right is one of the last pre-teen photos of Nick, taken at Disneyland in
March 1999, when he was still 12. "Ch-ch-ch-changes!" Through nobody's
fault adolescence arrived, and the parents had barely adjusted to
childhood! The other half of this photo, and the reason why it appears here in
two halves, can be found here.
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Celebrating Alban's 18th birthday at Rosie McCann's in downtown Santa Cruz.
September 2007.
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Here's one of him dressed up for his cousin
Antony and
Courtney's wedding, a beautiful show that
the bride's and groom's families put on in La Jolla in November
2003.
The invitation said semi-formal, and Nick was duly offered his first suit. He's letting it all hang out at the reception,
held at
La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla. There's nothing
like a little rock and roll and an attractive dance partner to make you feel
good! |
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Here he is after moving back in with us in the summer of
1999 (see history), with his birthday eMachines computer. (We would like to thank
eMachines and AOL for enabling us to afford a computer for a 13th
birthday!)
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Still at it in December 2007! Now he hooks up his own Dell
notebook with Charles' eMachines so that he can work on two screens. He
works as a programmer, part-time or full-time as the spirit moves him.
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Here's another recent picture, this time with Alex on the deck
at home. It was father's day.
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Here's a great but rare recent photo of Nick with
Alban and Daphné,
taken at Thanksgiving 2005. Tom went to
Thanksgiving dinner at his grandfather's in Palo Alto, and the rest of
us dined with the Hanlons.
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| Graduating from Branciforte Junior High, June
2000.
he had been in the US for one year, eighth grade.
Here is his graduation from Scotts Valley High School
four years later.
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As the license plate says, . . . |
Here is a great one of
Nick on a water ride in England, and here he is doing one of the things that he still does best,
playing with Charlie and Alex. He likes
soccer, surfing, and going to
La Grée. He likes
swimming, halloween and
Christmas. He loves his work as a computer programmer. Finally, here are a few
earlier pictures of Nicholas, when he was a small
boy in Paris.
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