Here's
Thomas!! (2000-07)
(born
October 1989 in Paris)
Tom was born in Paris the same week as the Loma Prieta earthquake that so
shook up Santa Cruz County in 1989. He lived in Paris with Ian
and his mother until he was almost
four, September 1993, and then in the Yvelines to the southwest of Paris, first
at Le Tahu and then La
Bellanderie.
In June 1997, when the rest of this blended family moved to the USA,
the blended country, Tom and Nick remained in
France and moved back to Paris. (See history) Earlier
photos of Tom can be found here.
Tom finally moved back in with us in Santa Cruz
in August 1999, and here he is stuck! Well, at least
until Christmas 2007, when he moved back to Paris, initially for a few weeks. He
never returned home during 2008!
As our four older offspring get older, they become increasingly difficult to
photograph, at least for the parents. So more recent photos come increasingly
from their friends. This one on the left was taken at Pizza My Heart, on Pacific
Avenue in Santa Cruz in early 2007. It's one of the first photos that we have of
Tom since his orthodontist work was completed late in 2006.
Tom took up playing the guitar after his birthday in 2004, and has applied
himself diligently to his lessons, practicing, and learning songs like The
Beatles' "Blackbird" and even some Jimi Hendrix classics. Way to go, Tom!
He turned seventeen in October 2006.
After graduating from High School, Tom spent a semester at Cabrillo, the
local community college, and played on the street in downtown Santa Cruz with
other budding musicians. Then at the end of December 2007 he went on vacation to
visit his mom in Paris. From his MySpace site, we found this picture, taken during a visit to Oxford with his friend Adji.
Tom is a tough cookie. That's the first thing that you notice about him. He played rugby in Paris when he was only seven and eight,
and is the only one of our boys who has actually played American football.
They won't let boys of seven or eight even play rugby in our little corner of
the US: it's considered too rough here. Tom was disappointed: he really liked
his rugby.
After American football and wrestling, he finally settled into the sport that
unites this household, soccer, "the beautiful game,"
England's principal contribution to team sports (for those cricket and rugby
fans out there, you're entitled to your opinions, however wrong they may be!)
On the left above is a portrait taken for the team he played for with
Alban in 2000. In the 2005-6 winter season, he played for the Harbor High School Junior Varsity team
(photo here).
All of which has little to do
with this photo by the camp fire, which simply demonstrates how photogenic he is. It was taken
during a camping trip at Big Sur in May 2001.
On the right, in Carnaby Street in London, where we found a
Santa Cruz icon
during our summer vacation in 2001 in
the presence of an O'Neill's Surf Shop, complete with the
West Cliff surfer statue. Alex is upside down, and the
little arm with a plaster cast belongs to Charles. Tom delights in playing
with Alex and
Charles.
The photo below is his choice, because he looks smart in it. It was
taken at his Uncle Antony's wedding to his Aunt Courtney in La Jolla,
California in November
2003. Needless to say, Tom does not wear a tie every day! Here's another of him
at that wedding.
Tom also has great engineering instincts, although he has not been putting
them to much use yet. Here is the car that he built as a junior high school
project, with just a little help.
He needed some help from Nick to build the
model below, in April 1999
when he had not yet turned ten, but it really was an extraordinary piece
of work. If you can't see what the model is, it's an enormous roller coaster
in K'nex.
