Every spring we like to go to the arboretum in Madison and take some photos of the kids. Spring came a bit later this year, but when it came the flowering trees were as beautiful as ever. The arboretum in spring is easily my favorite place in Madison. Hopefully I can find something to replace it in Washington.

I’ve been learning what all parents who have come before me must already know so well: kids are nearly impossible to photograph. Odessa as a toddler was very difficult, but if I caught her eyes and told her to sit, she would sit for two or three seconds. If you tried to show her something, like a flower, she will share your interest and curiosity. Leo, however, doesn’t care who you are or what you’re interested in. He will not sit for even one second, will not look at anything you want him to look at, and gets cranky in general if you try and persuade him to go, or not go, somewhere. Now that Odessa is older, she is extremely easy to photograph. Perhaps Leo will also, with age, be slightly less disposed to outright bellicosity to our admittedly numerous and strange requests. For example, maybe next year he will not throw up on the grass.

Anyway, I think the pictures turned out well. You can view them here:

One blustery, cold, spitefully bitter day in Alaska, Serena snowshoed home from the remote clinic in which she worked to her modest, second floor igloo apartment unit in an equally remote village. As she methodically plodded along, her environment, purple with the fleeting rays of an elusive sun, was brimming with activity. She passed countless elegant moose, their brown fur frozen in formations like the cacti thorns of an entirely different landscape. Each moose would, elegantly of course, spontaneously slump over as they procedurally died of starvation in this brutal, unforgiving land.

And as she trudged, knee deep in snow, she, quite expertly it must be said, dodged the rain of ptarmigan, plummeting to the earth like giant hail stones. The birds, slaughtered by the cutting wind, fell to the ground in mid-flight by the thousands, icebound and rigid, beak first, like so many lawn darts.

Yet she paid none of this any attention. Still walking, only one thing occupied her thoughts. When she arrived home, she found her husband, clad in blood and viscera, harvesting the blubber of his most recent kill, and shared with him what was on her mind.

“I don’t think I like being a nurse,” she said. Thus began our journey.

And now, more than five years later, she has finished what she set out to do. On Friday, she had her hooding and commencement ceremonies, and on Sunday we celebrated with friends and family. I don’t want to over-dramatize it, because that’s totally not like me, but the last few years have had their challenges. Serena gave birth to two kids, worked part-time as a nurse, and still found time to not just complete, but excel at, her coursework. There were some difficult stretches, including several nights where she would leave our apartment at 6am and not return until the evening of the next day, sleeping uncomfortably in her school library.

And this is the part where I publicly state how proud I am of her. I think what she did is amazing. She likes to say stuff like she couldn’t do it without me. And it is obviously true that I support her as best I can. But I was not the one who filled out answers on tests and spent hours studying. Serena is ambitious and driven, and she can definitely do whatever she wants to do. Furthermore, she will serve as a great role model for our kids, showing them by example that if they don’t like where their decisions have taken them, with a bit of hard work they can change their lives for the better.

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone who came to the party on Sunday. It is moving to me to see such participation in our joy. So many people came out, and it means a lot to us. It very effectively highlights that the biggest loss in moving to Washington will be our distance from our giant, generous family of supporters.

We had a display of some pictures which represented the last five years. If you didn’t get a chance to look at them, you can see them below. Most of these pictures have been posted elsewhere on this site at one time or another, so there isn’t much new.