The Seven of Us

The boys and I landed in Albany late on Friday, May 22. On Saturday morning we drove to my house, had lunch, changed, quickly cuT Isaac's hair, and went to Conor's wedding. I snapped these pictures between Warrensburg and Stony Creek, when I was still captivated by the curvy roads and green everywhere.  Growing up, going anywhere looked like this. Now I can't believe I used to live in a place this lush. And while I love visiting and taking in the scenery, I now prefer more open spaces. (Actually, I really loved the Utah mountains. In terms of scenery, they were a perfect compromise between the Something of my youth in the Adirondack Mountains and the Nothing of my adulthood on the High Plains of Colorado.) The wedding was held at a camp in Galway.  Don't be deceived--it only looks warm. In actuality, the breeze was frigid.  I kept trying to get a good look at Natalie, as if a glimpse of her would tell me all about her. (We didn't meet until after th...

During June, kids would just come over after baseball practice and play a game in the backyard. 

This is what happens when your kids become teenagers.(Isaac has his back turned to the camera and Corbin is invisible--you can just see his friend Milo's head sticking out of the cart behind Isaac. Later I took this picture and video. 

Isaac is tall . He's still eleven, and I'm guessing he's 5'6". He reaches my nose. Even though he doesn't like to hear it, he takes after my dad (and my dad's grandfather, Andrew Droddy): He's tall and slender. He may be done growing by the time he's 13. And he's obsessively clean. When I look at Isaac lately, I am reminded of the fact that he's becoming a man before my eyes.  I think I felt this way with Caleb, too, but maybe I didn't notice it right away since I hadn't been through it before. Yup, our boys become men, and while it doesn't exactly happen overnight, it happens fast.  Fast enough, in fact, that I'm thinking of Kenney Chesney's song  Don't Blink as I write this, and I'm wondering, How can you miss something when you're right there?  How has this happened so fast?  https://youtube/4f0p5KqdU9U I was organizing the office closet and I found this photo in Caleb's scrapbook. Kinda proves t...