These playful women wanted to toss out the America’s Next Top Model attitude pose.  P.S. Dad is this enough color for ya

A thing I enjoy about children: They play hard.

It has often been said that there is no other joy greater than the joy of an expectant parent.  Maybe there is much truth to that.  When I was 8 1/2 years old I was adopted.  Even though I was adopted, my mother recently told me that going through the long adoption process felt similar to that of being pregnant with her two biological children.  My mother is an honest woman so I must take her at her word.  In response I say this to her now:  Dear Mom, I hope I brought you as much joy during your “pregnancy” as you have brought to the living of my life.  A doctor could not deliver me to you but you have delivered me from hopelessness to hopefulness.  From futureless to fruitfulness.  From coldness to comfort.  From pain to peace.  You gave me life in all of the important sense of that phrase.

Allen: Husband, Father, Humanitarian, Intellectual, Closest of Friends, Slooooow Talker, Long Answering Machine Message Leaver, Rita’s Ice Hater, Closet Apple Fan, Once A Year Photoblog Updater, Twice A Day Manicure Customer and last but not least, Photographer—-or so he thinks —hey Allen I hear Nikon has great glass!  Have not yet seen the photo Allen took of his kid in the above frame (i.e. once a year photoblog updater), but at that range I imagine it must have looked something like the one I took of his kid below.

Rachel talks with Doug on the phone about a possible gift idea while showing us a photograph of Amish children that she liked at the Manayunk Arts Festival.

An artist at the Manayunk Art Festival was selling handcrafted ceramic flutes, all of which my artist genius friend Kristine was able to coax out beautiful sounds from.  Actually, I’m getting into the business of taking still pictures for motion films and this is a frame I took of the artist formally known as Byzantine practicing the soundtrack to the upcoming McG film Terminator Salvation.  Tada tata tah!  Tada tata tah!  Tada tata tah!

A bit over a month ago 10 (yeah Dad I can count—a few are missing here of our friends spent a weekend here in Philly with us.  Every year we get together and this year we converged here.  I love these people more than I know how to express with words.

For an afternoon we walked the streets of an area of Philadelphia named Manayunk to take in the annual Manayunk Arts Festival that draws around 350,000 people over two days.  All of the pieces there are handcrafted and are not allowed to be mass produced.  Well, while walking the streets Paul and Rachel heard talk of free food and shirts—naturally it was a no brainer—we all sat down in 500 degree heat to watch a chef who works for Iron Chef Cat Cora actually add more heat around us by cranking up his infrared grill (I thought it was some space ray gun or something).  The food was pretty amazing however.

Our friend Paul, who I thought was pretending to be interested in an ingredient, asked a few questions during the cooking session.  My first thought was—oh no, Paul is getting a Mic! (when you are hanging with my man Paul you are bound to have ummm….a colorful time ;-).  Apparently, Paul and the chef knew much more about cooking than me because I didn’t understand the questions nor the answers.  Good thing my job is taking pictures right?

Post 5 of Keely & Mark’s wedding.  Keri is a friend of mine whom I never failed to have a good time with during college.  Her friendship was plainly evident when, unlike me, she faithfully wrote while I was overseas during my junior year.  I will always think fondly of her for that.  I always enjoyed getting her updates while I was gone because you see Keri is one of the best connected people I know—she knows all that is going on with EVERYONE.  Her updates provided a bit of home comfort during a time when I needed it most.  Thanks Keri.  Even though it was good to catch up with her and meet her boyfriend, they were also busy helping Melissa with her twins.

Post 4 of Keely & Mark’s wedding.  Considering Melissa had her 4 month old twins with her, I thought it was pretty smart that she booked a room in the upstairs part of the reception hall to chill with her little guys.  Watching Melissa take such good care of her boys that night, I understood very clearly how much work and pipes (those puppies are heavy little suckers it takes to stay on top of twin babies. Melissa, your children will learn to be grateful for having you as their mother.

Post 3 of Keely and Mark’s wedding.  With all the toasting that took place at the wedding, Carol needed more than a single glass of champagne to get her through all of them.  Okay, so it was only ginger ale and our table did give her our glasses to make her look like a lush, but she was cool for playing along.