"A Tapestry of rich,
embroidered hue. . ."
"My life
has been a tapestry
of rich,
embroidered hue,
an
everlasting vision
of the ever
changing view,
a wondrous,
woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
a tapestry
to feel and see, impossible to hold." ©
Carole King
Our lives too have been a tapestry, 16 years of which which
we have tried in our modest way to weave into this extended photo album.
The headings above are the the basic squares of our
photographic tapestry, and each one of them is the theme for its own collection of pages. You
can explore by clicking through the above links, and the links above in the
pages you land on. That's one way to navigate. Others are highlighted below.
But let's start with this photo album's genesis.
As you can see here, first there
were albums on paper, organized by themes. That organization was
transposed to the web. Then the web themes were expanded over
the years.
The first basic theme is people, and this being a family, our
themes start with parents and
children.
Marie-Hélène
and Ian are the parents, and the "big kids,"
Nick, Daphné,
Alban and Tom, and "little guys,"
Charlie and Alex, are the
children. Then, we have photos arranged by
family groups: for example, we have
big kids with little kids, because
there is a space between our older four children and the younger two, our
cats, and even a few kisses!
Just to show that we are not entirely self-obsessed, we also have
friends and family pages. These
include Ian's friends,
Marie-Hélène's family, grandma,
grandparents and the
Hanlons (friends of both), and Alex
and Charlie's friends.
The photo above left was taken by papa of
all of the rest of us at home for Charlie's 12th birthday cake in 2007. The
reverse version, taken by maman, is here.
To see all the titles of all the pages
within any major theme (named in larger fonts in these paragraphs), click on it!
The second basic theme is the passage of time for us and
ours, our history. We're a
little bit modern in the sense that some of our history preceded the wedding!
Our history includes the phases in the life of this family.
This is the part that we hope the children will each read as they grow up. It
starts with the blending of the two then existing
families when we moved in together in 1994, and continues with
Charles' arrival in
Brittany in August 1995, our
wedding in May 1997 and
Alex's arrival in Santa Cruz in January
1998. The third family was then complete. The three
families continued through the years, two rounds of
graduations, Nick's and Daphné's
moving out, and Tom's moving back to Paris. On and on we go!
We also approach our history with our
carousel of time, a kind of diary, composed in retrospect for each year
from 1994 through 2007. The text for each of those years was prepared normally at the end
of the year as an update for friends and family. From
2008 on, this album has become a
photo journal organized by year.
On the right, a piece of history that didn't fit on any of
the above pages, Charles's "promotion" from Happy
Valley School, after seven years there, happy indeed. If it had been called
a graduation instead of a promotion, it would have fit on a
graduations page.
The final basic theme, although this one is harder to
summarize cleanly, is our various activities. We go on vacation, enjoy a
collection of hobbies, have fun on special days, and have many places that we
call home. You're right, homes are not activities, which proves simply that all
classification systems are imperfect! Our
homes have been in France,
England and California.
Our vacations most often
include France, England
and California! They also include
Disneylands in France and California. In North America,
we have travelled to Florida,
Vancouver BC, Colorado and
Death Valley. Our
hobbies include some that you might expect, such as
video games and surfing,
and others less hobby-like, such as homework and
trains.
Special Days are mostly pretty much obvious, as in
Christmas,
Thanksgiving, Halloween and
Christmas.
The photo to the left came from 2007's summer vacation, which
we split between France and England. The Cafe Twit is in Great Missenden,
Buckinghamshire, at the Raoul Dahl Museum. The big kids rarely accompany us on
vacations these days . . .
Did you remember that to see all the titles of all the
pages within any major theme (named in larger fonts in these paragraphs), you
should click on it? The best way to see all of the pages in this album is
to do just that. The hyperlinks here cover maybe half of the pages, maybe less.
Just in case, here's an almost random list of other pages not yet linked here.
There
is the Santa Cruz
Beach Boardwalk, our town's very own amusement park,
and West Cliff, home of the surfing museum and a
great Sunday afternoon stroll or bicycle ride. Here are Faby and Jean,
with Fiona, Maeve, Leah and Chenoah. Here are early photos of Nick,
Daphné, Alban,
Tom, Charles,
Alex, and Alex and Charles.
Here is Charles and Alexander's belated
baptism in Brittany, in August 2004, Courtney Bolin and
Antony Nash's wedding in La Jolla,
California in November 2003, and the
25th reunion of Ian's law school class in October 2007. Here is
Edgar, a Chateau in France, a
little fooling around, and even a little
homework and stamping. It
never stops!
Oh yes, before I forget, a little soccer, and a
little more, and a little
more.
Finally, an alphabetical listing of all pages in the web site appears below
left, with each page linked. So that makes three different ways to navigate.
