Blowing & Drifting

Carleton has a lot of good traditions, but those centered on “New Student Week” are especially good. The best one: upperclass students line up at the formal campus entrance and cheer – loudly and energetically – for the first-year students as they roll onto campus. The noise is joyous and wonderful. Another good, if more [...]

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Julia’s first day of first grade went pretty well, I think. Witness:

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Our first-ever family trip to the Minnesota Zoo was quite an outing. Many many animals seen, three and a half hours on our feet, five or six miles walked, four snacks and four lunches consumed, scores of other families dodged, dozens of prairie dogs oohed and ahhed over, several big felines gaped at, one terrifying shark [...]

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One of our wonderful neighbors – someone who runs Swag, a great (web-invisible) shop in downtown Northfield – bought some oversized adirondack chairs for her backyard. Before wheeling them out of sight, she invited us to come over and sit in them, which we promptly did, being suckers for a cheap fun time. Julia predictably [...]

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If mining made the Upper Peninsula great in the period up to about World War II, it’s logging that – along with, arguably, tourism – that is keeping the place viable. My late grandfather spent his whole life handling logs, either skidding them out of the woods with horses or driving log trucks from the [...]

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While up in Hancock earlier this week, I passed by the house where I lived from 1988-1991, at the corner of two steep uphill streets. It is, I think, a nice little house – though the current owners could be taking better care of it. Apart from the view to the south (a view I [...]

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One of the best drives in the Upper Peninsula takes US41 from the Copper Country around Keweenaw Bay to L’Anse, Michigan. Driving west on that route last Sunday, I stopped in the tiny bayside town of Baraga to take a few shots of the morning sun on the bay. I could not have been more [...]

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I’m just back from my four-day trip to the Upper Peninsula to attend my grandfather’s funeral. I’ll be writing more about the trip – and about the funeral – soon, but for tonight I wanted to just post three pictures of the Copper Country: the view from Houghton, on the southern side of the Portage [...]

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So I called him when I was a little boy, to distinguish him from my dad’s dad, “Cow Grampa.” I’ll write more about “Hub” Jauquet later, but here’s his obituary. He was a tough guy, one of a kind. Herbert “Hub” Francis Jauquet, 89 of Channing, Michigan passed away on August 24, 2010 at ManorCare Health [...]

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On Friday night, the girls played some more “monkey in the middle,” which they call “Ball Thief.” Here are 23 seconds of them are in action: Ball Thief from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

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There really are twin ruts in this road, but this is a funny sign anyhow.

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One last post about Vivi’s birthday – photos of her on each of her birthdays.

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Apart from some characteristic growliness when waking up, Vivi enjoyed her birthday a lot. In an adorably openhearted way, she loved being the worthy center of attention: eating birthday cake for afternoon snack, opening presents, having a dinner made to order (and what a dinner it was: pizza stromboli, corn on the cob, and rhubarb [...]

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Genevieve had a blast celebrating her fourth birthday at Nonna and Boppa’s house, where most of the extended family also showed up. The best part was either the cake or the presents but Vivi was also pretty excited by the fact that she gets “another birfday!” on Sunday, her actual date of birth. Tonight’s bedtime [...]

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Vivi spent about half an hour before her “family party” on Friday afternoon writing this on her Nonna’s computer: Happy birthday to me Happy birthday to me We love our birthday girl I love my cake It’s so cute She was pretty happy with her accomplishment!

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