London with Mimi and Papa

The grandparents formerly known as Carla and Terry are known to their grandkids as Mimi and Papa. London has two cousins. Vicki's sister Sarah and her husband Daniel have two daughters, Abby, 5, and Caty, 3. And London has another cousin on the way...more on that in a few weeks.

London is fascinated with big people stuff. He wants to sit like big people and eat like big people. He wants to wear big people clothes and use big people tools. The results of his ongoing quest to be a big person are sometimes frustrating, sometimes hilarious, and always endearing.

The doctor is in

I'm such a clod. I was all busy posting pictures of my birthday, and I skipped over a much more significant event. Last Friday, June 16, Vicki graduated with her Ph.D. in physical anthropology. Her parents, Terry and Carla Cooper, came out for the event. Well, mostly they came out to play with London, as you'll see in an upcoming post.

Here are some pictures from the glorious event. The first stage was an anthro department function in a lovely forest meadow. Then the university-wide graduation ceremony was held on a grassy field overlooking Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful, sunny, and very hot day. Fortunately the area taken up by the graduation ceremony was only a small chunk of the field, and I was able to turn London loose and chase him around in the sun.

Vicki was hooded by her advisor, Alison Galloway.



Here are Vicki and Alison standing next to Carla.


Alison presented Vicki to the department and gave a quick summary of her project. She finished in five years--five years that included a lot of non-dissertation-related forensic work, heart surgery, pregnancy, and a year and a half of motherhood. Not bad at all.


A quick pic with Terry while the graduates waited to file in.

And here I am, proud enough to die.


Alison hoods Vicki. The Ph.D. program in physical anthropology is brand new, and Vicki is Alison's first Ph.D. student.


The first steps into a new world. Next month Vicki starts at postdoctoral fellowship at Berkeley. After that, who knows?

Late photos from Matt's birthday

June 3rd was my 31st birthday. We had a get-together with some friends at the new place in Berkeley. We haven't moved any furniture up, so people sat on boxes of books (I'd packed 'em solid for that very purpose). It was good party, and I got a ton of loot.

Unfortunately, most of the pictures came out radically out of focus. The ones I'm posting here are not a representative sample, they're just the ones that turned out. Many thanks to all who attended. It was a great birthday.


Here's Brian Kraatz holding Tiny Man. London was extremely well behaved at the party. He was roaming around, flirting with everyone, and generally working the room like a pro.


Here Emily Hunter (left) demostrates Iceman's ice-shooting method, for Sarah Ginn (blue), Ilsa (black), and Vicki (white). Emily is marrying Nick Pyenson tomorrow. I've been lobbying hard for Nick to take her name. Think about it: can he really pass up the opportunity to become Nick Hunter? With a name like that, he could become an international man of mystery in no time.



Here I am with Andrew Lee, and someone, possibly Joel Abraham, is distracting me from my cake.

This may be the most poorly-composed photo I've ever taken, but here you go. From left to right, the folks in the picture are Emily, Nick, Lauryn Benedict, London, Lauryn's S.O. Bill, Anne Peattie, Vicki, Ilsa, and Sarah. I think I took this after Joel split. He's been traveling his butt off lately, so he had to jet a little early.


And if you'd like to see what those people look like from the front, here are Lauryn and Bill, Nick and Emily, and a certain busy boy. What you can't see is that London is playing with a big can of lipstick; Vicki had a little Mary Kay party in the corner. But don't fret. London is all man. I fed him a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce that night just to make sure.

The ongoing saga of a boy and his parents

Sorry for the long delay between posts. We're in the middle of moving to our new apartment, and Vicki is preparing to file her dissertation. If you're reading this after midday on June 14, she's probably Dr. Vicki.

London is great fun. He is exhausting to watch all day, and he has finally learned how to fuss. But Vicki lets me out on sanity breaks as often as she can, and when I come back London usually leaps into my arms for a big hug and some wallerin'. Then I remember that I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

Seriously.






This is the world's most beautiful sight: a toddler who has put himself to sleep.



I have no idea what the calculator is doing in this picture. Besides risking its life.



Oh yeah. That's the stuff.