Other than possibly hurting me for showing the wide web this photo, mom is pretty non-violent.  She loves to travel to far off exotic places like Hawaii, or San Francisco.  She also managed to raise two wonderful kids while balancing work and a marriage for 26 years.  And she is the best cook (like grandma who is also pretty fabulous).  I'm trying to pay attention to what she fixes so that one day I can eat healthy all by myself.  I can't say how old she is, but you would never guess. Thanks for your genes mom.  Mand and I couldn't have been more lucky.

For as long as we can remember, this is how dad always used to look to us.  Now if you replace this camera with a state of the art digital one (together with built in video, a 4GB memory card, seven rechargeable batteries, and a precise pixel quality), that would be him now.  Dad was the dad who would take us exploring wherever we went and we always managed to end up on someone's private property or stuck in a cave with bats.  And it was fun.  He was the one who would teach us why the sky was blue or if the mass of every Photon is exactly equal to zero.

Even though we've tore each other's hair out and slammed doors in one another's face, I still think she is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in real life.  She doesn't believe me though.  We would hide in laundry hampers and use code names like "Della or "Belle" and pretend that we were neighbors who went out for coffee every so often.  Or we would be detectives and stalk out roofs and behind the dumpster of our parent's old work looking for clues and traces of foul play.  Remember when we found that big bucket of oil?  We thought we were going to be rich!  Those were the days.