Given the circumstances, we had a good visit to see family in Mississippi after my mother-in-law passed away. I debated whether I should bring my camera or not, right up until I left for the airport, but in the end decided that I might as well bring it since it packs up pretty small and wouldn’t require much extra effort.

My job for much of the week was to keep the young children entertained while the adults did the adult stuff. There is a short path through the woods behind the house that we liked to take which yielded my favorite picture of the week, if not the year, so I was glad I brought the camera if only for that one picture of the two youngest kids.

I grew up in the east but didn’t get into photography until shortly before we moved to Oregon, so I have better memories than pictures of the birds of my youth. So whenever I travel back east, I’m always on the lookout for old friends. Our last day there was a quiet one, the kids having left the day before, so I had some down time for bird-watching and was again glad I brought the camera.

One picture I wanted was of the mockingbird that often hung out near the house. Like all the birds there, it was pretty skittish, but after sitting still on the porch for long enough, it eventually came close enough for some pictures. It was cloudy so I went for a high key look, which will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I like it.

I didn’t bring my big telephoto lens or my tripod, it wasn’t that kind of trip, so many of the pictures are pretty soft. Nevertheless, it was nice to be reacquainted with family and friends alike.

After a lengthy illness, last week my mother-in-law passed away in her sleep. Out of respect for her privacy, I won’t say much more, except that she was always kind to me and made me feel welcome from the first time I met her. I am saddened by her loss but thankful she got to see her children and grandchildren before she passed, and that she suffers no more.

She didn’t like to be photographed but I’ll pay tribute with a picture of something she loved: hummingbirds. I never got a good picture of her birds, the dozens of ruby-throats that swarmed her feeders, never had the right equipment with me or the right luck. But I did enjoy standing near them and just listening as they buzzed by my head as they flew past to feed, and watching as they dove down from the trees.

This little bird is not a ruby-throat but a rufous hummingbird I photographed here in Oregon years ago. Not a great picture, and not one I have up on my main site, but sadly it’s my best hummingbird picture to date. Perhaps that will change one day, I’ve cleared out some space in the backyard and was wondering what to put there. This past week I thought of planting a little wildflower garden in her honor, stocked with plants to attract the fantastic little fliers that we both love.

Goodbye, Mom, and God bless.

Another in my line of goofy self-portraits while out hiking, this one taken last weekend on the trail from Multnomah Falls to Larch Mountain. I didn’t make it all the way to the top of Larch Mountain and took this on the way back down, a fallen tree made a nice bench in front of the large tree.

This is a whimsical take on Rodin’s The Thinker, I also posed in the classic pose but I didn’t like the shot as much since my hat threw my face into shadow. I didn’t get the classic pose quite right anyway, my right elbow was on the wrong knee and my left hand was wrong as well. I guess I’m not only no Rodin but no Dante in front of the gates of Hell either.

It’s funny how when you see the self-timer light on the camera blinking, you realize you can’t remember the details of a famous pose. This happened to me in the Tetons a couple of years ago, I was trying to do the Heisman pose and realized I didn’t remember the details of that one either.

This was only my second time out hiking this summer and I felt all of my 40 years by the time I got back down to Multnomah Falls. I was sore all over and pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to move the next day, but thankfully the only thing still sore 24 hours later were my calves, and even they weren’t doing so badly.

Perhaps I don’t have one foot in the grave after all.

Ashley bangs out a rep of pull-ups to prove how tough Texas children are. She needn’t have bothered, I was convinced after the one-handed push-ups.

This was a low key weekend for me.

The previous ten days were exhausting, after getting back from a short vacation I had a week and a half of nearly non-stop work, including long hours on the weekend and one all-nighter.

To recover, I didn’t do anything this weekend that required much thinking. On Saturday after dropping my wife off at Union Station for her train ride, I went home and sat down for a while. I woke up a few hours later when the phone rang and she let me know she had arrived safely.

Little Sam then crawled up into my lap and zonked out for while. I watched the US Open on TV, probably the first time in my life I’ve watched golf. My step-father really enjoyed golf and I was reminded of the time he took me around his golf course and answered my many questions, in a way it seemed like we were watching it together. Tiger was playing hurt but also playing out of his mind and I have to say I quite enjoyed it.

I eventually dislodged my little kitten so I could have an early dinner and then work in the yard for a while. Today was equally ambitious, more yardwork and more golf on TV, and then I let the little ones outside.

Emma and Scout are similar in that they don’t like lots of noise and didn’t want to stay out long, while Sam is like Templeton in that he just loves being out there. It’s impossible not to think of our departed gray cat while I’m out there with the other cats, but it was comforting seeing our little orange kitten having so much fun, he even rolls around on the concrete like Templeton used to.

Sam is starting to learn the rules of Outside Time, he actually came running to the door when I clapped my hands and he realized it was time to go in. He didn’t try any escape attempts so I felt comfortable enough to grab the camera and take some pictures. He likes to crouch down and chase the other cats — another of Templeton’s traits — so I wanted to capture the little hunter. I leaned over to put the camera just above the grass to give the feel of a lion in Africa peeking out from the tall savannah grass.

I was going to mow the yard late in the day but things had quieted down and Emma wanted to come back out so I let the two of them play instead. I eventually brought them inside so I could have some dinner and watch the end of the basketball game.

A perfectly relaxing weekend, but it’s going to be hard to get up to go to work tomorrow.

Cough cough. Whoa, is that botulism coming on? Perhaps I’d better call in sick …

A picture of my wife watching the sun set from four years ago, taken on Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon.

We were staying in our favorite hotel, the Sylvia Beach Hotel, as we like the peace and quiet. It sits right on the beach, so we took a short walk from our hotel room and walked down the beach to an area where we could be off on our own.

And now I’m suddenly craving the seafood chowder at Sharky’s down by the harbor, which is only a problem in that I’m not down by the harbor but back in my house in Portland.

We’re having a nice quiet Christmas this year. I’ve been alternating between spending time with our new cats Sam and Emma (Sam is currently curled up and sleeping on my legs and Emma is sleeping beside me) and Scout, who is feeling a bit unsure of the situation but played quite a bit with me and a ribbon from one of the Christmas presents.

This picture was taken in Charleston, South Carolina last December. It’s not composed all that well, but I wasn’t composed all that well when I took it — I had just flown in from Portland the previous evening and earlier that day the doctors had told us that my stepfather Dan was not responding to the treatments like they hoped, that they would wait a few more days but then we’d have to make the decision on whether or not to remove him from the ventilator.

Visiting hours had ended so we walked around the old neighborhoods of Charleston for a while. My mom called our relatives and friends with the sad news while we walked. It was a surreal experience, one of those times where you don’t know if going into the city was the right thing to do but I felt that a little beauty at that time would be welcome.

The old houses were painted in a variety of colors and festively decorated for the holidays. Even a house being restored, completely covered in black cloth, had a holiday wreath above a doorway. There we walked along these streets, the beauty of the nicely maintained and restored old houses, the decay of old structures, the celebration of this joyous holiday, and our own personal sorrow.

My stepfather passed away two days later when his weakened lungs just couldn’t breathe anymore.

December will always be a time of mixed emotions, when we mourn his loss, but also celebrate the good times — how the family rallied together in such difficult hours, the many good memories of his life, the lessons that he taught us.

The family reunited this December for my grandmother’s funeral and were able to honor her 97 years of life. For my wife and I, December also brought the loss of our cat Templeton. While we miss our little one and how much he loved to play in the wrapping paper after the presents were opened, we’re thankful for the two new little ones who’ve come to join our lives, and for Scout who makes the transition with us.

Christmas is a celebration of the ultimate gift of hope, of joy and love found in unexpected places. And even if a far less momentous gift than that of the Christ child, these two kittens curled up with me are a reminder that Templeton’s passing at the end of his long and wonderful life provides us with the opportunity to give a second chance at life to these little purr machines and look forward to the days ahead.

Continuing the theme of pictures from months ago, and also an appropriate picture on Thanksgiving of things I’m thankful for. This is a picture of one of my nieces from this summer.

I didn’t compose the shot as I normally would have, she was moving towards me pretty quickly. I also ended up with a slow shutter speed — too slow to freeze the motion of a child learning to walk.

But it turned into one of my favorite pictures of her, because I didn’t freeze her motion or position her better in the frame. Instead of being technically perfect, it let her joy and energy shine through.

Given the sad news over the past couple of days, here’s a good memory, which I added to racphoto today.

My grandparents had a cabin next to a small lake where we’d go swimming and canoeing. One spring when I was a young boy, Grandma believed wood ducks were nesting in the box out front and thought she saw one of the parents fly up to the nest. She called me over to the table in front of the large picture window and we waited to see if it would come back out again.

We waited. And waited. And waited.

The duck never showed, but her love for them did, as did her desire to pass on that love to me.

This is one of the squirrels here in South Carolina that has the unusual color combinations my stepfather Dan had pointed out to me. I came across it after we came back to South Carolina after Dan’s funeral, while taking a short walk along the golf course (temporarily inactive) where he loved to play.

I’ve been taking short walks hoping to see the squirrel again before I head back to Oregon, but so far no luck. But I am thankful to have been able to share a few moments with this one, as it fills me with warm memories.

If you’ve wandered through my web site or read through my blog, you’ll know many of the things I treasure in life. Hiking through the hills, little newts on the forest floor, the quacking of rafts of waterfowl in the winter. My cats sleeping on my chest or having adventures through the house or through my mind.

But there’s at least one thing that’s of great importance to me that I deliberately haven’t talked about here: my family. I keep a separate set of pages for family pictures and stories that isn’t linked from my public site.

Today I’ll make an exception.

My stepfather Dan was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. While the cancer treatment itself was progressing well and the tumors were greatly decreased, Dan developed a rapid case of radiation pneumonitis as a result of his treatment and his breathing troubles became severe enough that he needed to be put on a ventilator. I flew in a couple of weeks ago to be with him and my family, but unfortunately he didn’t improve.

Dan passed away on December 13th.

Dan came into my life a couple of decades ago when he and my mom started dating. They had been high school sweethearts but married other people and spent years apart, then started dating again after they each got divorced. Dan would drive down from Indiana on the weekends to be with us in Tennessee, and did that many, many times. They were like high school sweethearts all over again, and even though I didn’t know him very well then, it brought me great joy to see how happy he made my mom.

If Dan had done nothing else than make my mother that happy during the following years after they got married, that would have been enough for me. She deserves that happiness and I wished she had known that all her life. Fortunately for me, though, that was not the end of our relationship, as Dan and I grew close over the years.

Dan was my stepfather, but he loved me as a father and I loved him as a son.

I have many wonderful memories of him, so that even in this time of sadness as I mourn his passing, I also rejoice in the times we spent together. He helped me buy my first car when I was in college, a little red Nissan Pulsar. That was the first car I actually enjoyed driving, and it served me well during many trips back and forth between school and home, as well as around town and to the places I interned each summer.

He reached out to my wife and made her feel welcome in our large family, as he had been an outsider at one time as well. Dan had touched many lives in his life, and it was never more evident than when out in public in Indiana. Even walking through the Cincinnati airport when he picked up my wife and I a few years ago, we kept running into people he knew even as we walked from our gate to the exit. Everyone wanted to stop and say hi, because everybody liked him. That’s the kind of man he was.

Last summer after a family get-together, the rest of the family had departed but I had a few hours before my flight. I asked Dan if he could take me around the golf courses (the house is on a golf course) and he was happy to oblige. On a beautiful day, I’d prefer to go hiking and photograph wildlife, but Dan loved to golf. I know little of golf and peppered him with endless golf questions as we drove around in the golf cart, and we also discussed the various animals we saw as we went around, from a raccoon (a personal favorite of mine) to the odd coloration of some of the squirrels here, with a black-and-white coloring that makes them look a little coon-ish. It was one of those times where we didn’t discuss anything of great import, it was just nice to spend time together.

I got to see him this summer and again at Thanksgiving, and each visit ended with a strong hug. I talked to him on the phone shortly before he went into the hospital a couple of weeks ago, he wanted my help in choosing a present for my mom for Christmas. That was before we knew how serious his condition was, and it was the last time I spoke to him before he died. At first I regretted that our last discussion wasn’t about something more meaningful, but I quickly decided that it was completely appropriate. Even when he was feeling that miserable, his thoughts were of others, and to his dying day he was trying to do something nice for my mom and those he loved.

I don’t have any regrets about our relationship, he departed far too soon but he knew how I loved him and I knew how he loved me. It would have been nice to be be able to spend more time together, but we treasured the moments we had. Even now when I think of him, I don’t picture the man in the hospital bed hooked up to the ventilator, I think of the man in the picture above, beaming at his newest granddaughter who is beaming back at him. I took the picture at Thanksgiving this year, just a couple of weeks before he died. We had no idea at the time that he would get so sick so quickly.

The last couple of weeks have been the saddest of my life and I’m sure the last tears have not yet been shed. But even as I mourn for the loss in my life, I rejoice in the way he blessed my life and in the faith of the life yet to come.