theparkerfamily.org

  • propaganda

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    i can’t decide if this looks like an old-school soviet propaganda poster (“defend our babies!”) or the cover photo of sparklet’s latest CD (her take on the joshua tree, maybe).

    either way, i hope sparklet is a benevolent dictator/cult icon.

  • “squirrel!!”

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    on the flight back from manchester, with a small nod to “up!“

  • sydney and the citros

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    sydney and the citros, worcester, massachusettes

  • rye beach, n.h.

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    there are just about 1,000 things that the lady sparkler and i love about new england — family, seafood, what passes up there for a “hot” day — but near the top is the coast.

    we spent many most of our trips up her out on a boat of some kind or other, and even when we were landlocked there was always a trip to petey’s (on the water) for seafood.

    and so, on the way out of town, we stop at petey’s for a little take out seafood … and ate it on the hood of our rental car while baby sparklet slept in the back seat.

    if it gets much better than this, i’m a little nervous to see what that looks like.

  • week twenty-nine

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    photo of the week // week twenty-nine

  • cousins

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    i was raised in a family where both my parents were only children, so we used to joke that we had a family reunion every night for dinner.

    it’s not until i was much older that i realized how deep our family was on paul and gloria’s side, and during this trip sparklet must have met 15 new cousins this weekend. we didn’t even make it to the front door before we “lost” the baby, and sparklet made the rounds for about three solid hours before she made it back to me again (for 20 minutes, before she was gone another two hours).

    in the meantime, we got to see/meet/laugh with some of our new (and old) favorite people in the world — there was a real magic in the air. things went so well, that we already have our first reunion in i-don’t-know-how-many-years planned for this August … which, poetically enough, is when we promised paul and gloria we’d come and see them this year.

    leave it to those two to bring the family together even after they are gone themselves.

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    new hampshire // may

  • superbaby!

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  • aunt gloria

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    three weeks later, and we find ourselves back in new hampshire … mourning the loss of the person who got us through the last funeral.

    it’s poetic for my godmother gloria to move on less than a month after she lost her husband of 65 years — broken heart, of course — and i have to admit, i only thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies.

    but that ignores all the plans that she had made for the coming months, and implies that she was the type to rollover — something we all know is simply not the case.

    for every great thing i could say about paul, there is a parallel for gloria — the open doors, the family, stuffing us with food, always being there whether you asked or not.

    this week, it was much the same story.

    sparklet met a dozen of the most wonderful people that she may not have met otherwise … and was positively beaming the whole trip as she jumped from cousin to cousin to cousin.

    and, i think the thing that mattered most to gloria was family, so it’s fitting that the very last thing she ever did was bring us all together.

  • flight to manchester

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    flight to manchester

  • found: april

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    camera dump: april