When Mark was a grad student at Caltech in his late 20s, he often thought of his adviser, Prof. Edward C. Stone, "I'm half his age--I wish I had half his energy!" This year Prof. Stone celebrated his 70th birthday, and he's still going strong, working on cutting-edge space science like the traversal of the solar wind termination shock by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. His colleagues at Caltech put together a symposium in honor of his birthday, with professional and public talks and a banquet; Mark spent February 10th and 11th there, and took Cheryl to the banquet on the 10th to meet Prof. Stone and other long-standing friends and colleagues. There were quite a few people in attendance whom Mark hadn't seen since he graduated in 1993, or even longer! Cheryl took this photo of Mark with his former mentor.
Since she was very small, Lura has been ending each bath wearing a favorite "ducky robe." A couple of years ago, at the craft fair held in Hermosa Beach twice a year, we purchased a much larger one for when she outgrew her original one, and that day has now arrived. Her new ducky robe is big enough to keep her warm on the way to getting into her PJs for another year or two--we'll be sure to go back to Hermosa for a bigger one before then!
Mark's dad came by for a few days, from February 17th to 20th, to visit with his littlest granddaughter before her baby brother arrives. Grandpa taught Lura how to make a telescope from a rolled-up piece of paper--something Mark can't believe he didn't think to show her earlier himself!
Here Lura looks at Grandpa's email on our computer, which we've moved downstairs. Note Grandpa's sweatshirt, with the portrait of him on the left side, labeled "Grandpa"; Lura's Aunt Jennifer made that for him some years ago. Mark also has one, with a portrait labeled "Uncle Mark"!
On February 18th Cheryl and Lura took Grandpa and Mark to their "Music Together" class; usually they go on Wednesdays, but we went to this Saturday session to make up for one they had to miss. Here Mark is helping Lura jump five feet in the air during a "free dance" period; she's looking over at Grandpa for reassurance, and a few seconds after this photo was taken she got scared and just wanted to be held quietly. Sorry, kid, Dad's never been a great dancer...
The evening before he went home, we took Grandpa to Back Home in Lahaina, a Hawaiian restaurant a couple of miles from our house that's one of our favorites. (We had Mark's Yakudoshi Party there in June--you'll recognize the tree in those photos.)
Here Grandpa reads to Lura one last time before he heads home.
Lura looked forward to Grandpa's visit, and she had a great time with him while he was here! We hope to have him out here again not too long after her baby brother is born.
To get ready to bring our baby-to-be home, we pulled Lura's old infant car seat out of storage to clean it up and install it in our minivan. Lura wanted to try it on for size! Comparing this photo with the one we took when she was six days old, you can sure see how much she's grown!
On February 24th, Cheryl developed a nasty case of stomach flu, so Mark came home from work in midmorning to take care of Lura so Cheryl could rest. By a bit of bad luck, this happened to be the day that Mark had left our minivan at the Saturn dealer for some work, so when we decided that he and Lura would go see the "Curious George" movie, we had to put her car seat in our big van. Lura sat in the driver's seat while Mark fastened down her car seat in the second row. When we came home, Cheryl was fully recovered; we guess she just needed to get some uninterrupted sleep.
For some reason, that afternoon Lura wanted to sit in the laundry basket. Perhaps she felt it was a vehicle a bit more suited to her size than the van?
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