Happy New Year to all

Hello....welcome to our blog....and that's as far as I got when planning what to write here. This is my first post on my first blog, and I'm feeling, suddenly, a little shy. But New Year's Day seems an auspicious occasion to try my hand at something new, and in fact, I have many hopes and plans for 2008. I want to learn mountain biking, fly fishing, pyrotechnics, pole vaulting, and many other things. This will be your place to check in on our progress with all of that, and our place to pay a little homage to the events in our lives, both big and small, and keep them safe from the imprecision of memory.

You can see that June (also known affectionately as Pickles, the inspiration for the title of our blog) is resting up for a breakout year in 2008. What will she be doing a year from now? What will she be saying? This time with her is so sweet because we get to look forward to such astonishing developmental leaps, like talking, for crying out loud, and brushing her own teeth. But we also get to savor these last months with her as she transitions away from being a baby. I'm such a softie, I can make myself tear up just thinking things like that; in fact, I did just tear up a little bit.

But anyways, my idea for our first photo post on our new blog was Junie just past midnight last night, the first picture of her in 2008. Lloyd wisely talked me out of this. She probably wouldn't have woken up, but if she had...the scene I imagined was her standing right up in her crib, wailing in confusion ("mom, why are you being so WEIRD? why did you flash the light at me and run away?"), shaking the bars on her crib like a prisoner, and me shuffling clumsily, hastily out of the room, then more crying, then a struggle to settle back down.....Lloyd was right. Nonetheless, this is her first photo of 2008, taken at about 1:30 pm, 1/1/2008. Rest up, sweet girl, we're going to have a big year.