memorial beach weekend

what better way to spend a long weekend than with family, celebrating wonderful things, and digging in the beach sand and being joyful and carefree? david's parents had their 50th wedding anniversary in january this year, and we finally all found a time to come together to celebrate. 50 years of marriage sounds like hard work, and yet the easiest thing to imagine. 50 years of marriage sounds like a lovely way to celebrate friendship and partnership and togethership. it seems the sort of celebration that slowly sneaks up on you. or is it a celebration of a slow rolling accumulation of time and memories and life events, both good and bad, that blossom and grow within you and your partner until you become a single organism? a well established "we" brimming with the record of life? because that is what it seems to me, and it seems lovely. cheers to you, jim and louise!

happy anniversary! thank you for providing an idea of what successful marriage can look like after 50 years to those of us who wonder what time may hold for us. thank you for providing me with a family to love and to join. thank you for your son, who will help unlock the secrets of growing blossoming marriage for us well into the future.

i can't believe that no one has a picture of these youthful lovebirds at their anniversary celebration with family, but alas, it seems there is no picture. however, ahem, i did find this on david's phone and it is an image of them together at dinner, so it's essentially the same thing. why do we have a 2 second video of them at dinner, but no photo, you ask? well, that is because our photographer is 5 years old.

look at these kids, 50 years ago.

in addition to a celebration dinner, there was ice cream,


sand shoveling and beach tricks,




hiding from the rain in a towel,


family tram riding (clown car style),


and a good bit of nana time.


this poor little dude did some vomiting on the morning that we departed for home, but despite this heartbreaking face, i can say with certainty that we all had a wonderful weekend.