They do grow up fast..

...some old (and new) photos of my sons

Early smiles from my first born...Marty. 

 

My father holding Marty when he was around 6 months old.

Marty, at three or four years.

Second son, Russell was just a little bit of a thing when born, but has made up for it throughout his life.

He's always been inquisitive, and paid attention to details. This has been a good quality in his work with computers and other people.

He's not yet two years old, so I'm helping him down the big hill at my parent's home in Massachusetts.

March 1969. Always looking for interesting things. It became apparent when we'd go camping or hiking in the woods...every little thing was interesting for him!

Here's Russ in high school, and Marty smiling about something devious. He could often play tricks on Russ, but he also looked out for him many times.

My third son was unexpected, but a real gift. Here's Tai at around 2 years old.

Here Tai is close to the camera, and Marty is eating. Marty was in the Navy at that time. And I was in grad school. Tai was in kindergarten or maybe preschool. Russ was in college.

Here are some of my classmates in Counselor Education at U Florida...the teacher has almost no hair and is blond. I'm second from right in back row!

My sons and I would drive to Houston from FL to visit my parents and my sister and her children. Here cousin Zach is in foreground, and Tai is kind of lying back on his cousin Lisa. Tai would have been around 4 in this photo.

Here's Russ and his bride, Michelle after their wedding.

And now he has three beautiful daughters: Kate on left, then mom Michelle, Caroline a graduating high school senior, Russ and college girl Audrey.

Marty and his two children, William and Cayenne - taken a few years ago!

Marty and his second wife, Barbara!

Several years ago Marty's children graduated high school.

Tai is also married now, and has a dog and a cat!

Tai and his wife, Kendra.

I know I said I'd show old photos...but some of the newer ones were also in the same album. So I think I'm caught up!

But wait, that was just one photo album. There are at least 2 more on the shelf. I enjoyed throwing this one away when empty. Yay lightening up my life one little thing at a time. But the other 2 are totally about Tai, from beginning to walk till...who knows. I may not take each photo out of the pages, but just scan the ones I want to keep, and give the entire boos to him. Of course I probably don't want to mail them, so sometime he can get them from me!

The families in the past

 I didn't get to know them, because I was pretty much focused on raising my own children. But my husband had a sister and brother.

Here his sister is in the middle of the front row, with her husband to our left and her (and my husband's) brother to the right. My husband is leaning forward to be in the picture!

My mother and father. I'm surprised to see him touching her arm. They usually were pretty unaffectionate in public.

The administration building at Principia school, where both my parents worked, and my sister and I went to school. It was for children of Christian Scientist parents.

These are a mixture of our parents. I'm walking on the left, with my husband's father next, then my mother, then my husband's mother. This was about a year before we separated. We enjoyed eating at a fancy restaurant called the Kapok Tree in Clearwater FL. 

There was always a wait to get seated, and the walkway included this air conditioned portion with more statues and palm trees. I guess the food was alright, but the atmosphere was the main attraction.

We were separated, so my husband and the children flew to be with his parents for the holiday. It was to be his mother's last Christmas.

I think my husband is looking around his mother's shoulder, who's sitting in a wheelchair. 

My husband's older brother being silly at Christmas in 1971. 

And our lives kind of split in two after that. The children would spend every other weekend with him, and usually most of their vacations. Like many divorced families, it wasn't ideal, but we went forward and coped with the changes as they happened. I was the one always on the move, while my ex lived in one house after a few condos.

But let's look at some old photos of those children on my next post!

Third in a series of old family photos...not that old, but out of my past

 

This was our back yard in Connecticut one year. We had some nice times living in New England, going to all the historic sites nearby, but I admit I didn't enjoy the snow as much as I thought I would.

So we moved to Florida. We had off and on romantic feelings, as all married couples do. But we didn't stay together that long after we'd moved...maybe a bit over a year.

Hillsborough Bay, near the Courtney Campbell Causeway, is like a big bathtub most of the time. We had a little sailboat, and here hubby is rigging the sail. I have no idea who the little girl is in front of me, and I'm facing away. Youngest son is in the lifejacket by the boat. I guess my parents were watching my oldest son, and taking these pictures.

Speaking of bathtubs. This is us trying to sail without much wind. And I think by then my son had decided against trying this. 

 We were to learn that the nicer beaches were over in Clearwater and St. Petersburg, where the Gulf of Mexico gave cleaner sand at least, but still not often very big waves.

Out of the past - second chapter of photos out of the album

 

I just edited this old photo of me at around 4 years.

I married my Coast Guard husband  and won't even say the date. He was handsome to me. I was only a military wife for a couple of years. Our first son was born in a Naval Air Station hospital.

About a week after my son's birthday, my whole family came to Texas from St. Louis...parents and sister. She is enjoying the Gulf of Mexico here, and had just graduated from high school. 

It's pretty grainy to try to enlarge her, but this gives you a better idea of how she looked.

It's always fun to point cameras at other photographers. Here is my dad captured by my husband looking over the parental car. Yes they had driven the thousand miles to meet their first grandbaby. We lived up those stairs in the apartment behind my dad. We found a downstairs apartment a few months later!

After our second son had been born in Connecticut we moved to FL. So here I am skinny again drying off after a dip in the pool, with my parents visiting at a motel near Tampa. Dad has his back to the camera, while Mom sits in the far background in her shades. Oldest son is reaching for something on the table, while youngest is facing toward him on the other side. He's about 2.

More about our nautical life in the next post. (Not very much actually.)

From my past

 These old photos were in an album which frankly had seen better days. Many of the exposed photos stuck to each other where they were on facing pages. I also had culled many of the photos of my sons and given them new locations in cardboard albums, behind a plastic transparent screen. I don't know what has become of those, because they were gifts to my three sons. 

I found strangely enough that some photos had been added much later of my third son, who of course hadn't been around for most of the early events.

Anyway, I've spent several hours scanning and organizing them. The only ones I'll share here are ones that represent more than just my family. These represent places and events as well as people that may have died.

So to start, let's see about my own birth.

This is not an official birth certificate, and I've taken off my dates and my mother's maiden name, which might be of use to somebody wishing to steal my identity. Those footprints sure won't help them! 

I was a pretty long baby at 20-1/4 inches. I don't know if the other stats are at all unusual.

It's a cute document with a gold seal. After I scanned it I tore it up and threw it away. Who would want such a thing? It's not legal!

This shot, from the infamous Kodak box camera, shows I could sit up by the time I was 7 months old.

I think I have a heart locket on. And there's a bent-wood chair behind me on the front porch in Dallas TX. Date on the back says March 21, 1943

And I liked to give my smile to the photographer. I like this shot showing the bassinette. And the lovingly knitted cap and sweater by my grandmother. Dated March 17, 1945

Last shot from March 1945. It was wartime, and I think the car parked in the next driveway was our neighbor's. All cars were black then. And they had this awful brown/grey upholstery. (Well that was my memory anyway!)

And I just realized that because I had all boys, I had kept my old knit bonnet tucked away somewhere because of course it was pink! I didn't have a chance to give it to any granddaughters either, because they didn't live where it was cold.   But I did find it still where I tucked it. No moths have gotten to it either, amazing over all my moves and 79 years.

It did bring tears to my eyes, thinking of my dear grandmother whose fingers made these stitches. Love can be carried through the years in strange and beautiful ways.

Fast forward...next post I'll bring some other family members here!