Nick’s 70th Birthday Celebration, Ontario, Canada, July 2010

Posted on 6 July 2010 by Marina


A collage of impressions, before they fade away:

Brothers and sister -
Nothing has really changed -
Just time.
Tears expressing what words cannot
Touched by love,
Past and present.

Peter and Barbara
Preparing the feast
with such care,
such devotion.
A beautiful presentation
A gift for our brother.

Tanya and Anna,
Two lovely young women
Devoted to parenting.
And Martin and Sean too -
It’s moving to watch.

Mabel asking
What is your name?
and again, later
What is your name Marina?
I am taken in.
Playing with Grandad in the water
I have not heard him laugh so hard in eons.

Jack and Misha
Tumbling in a tent
Rolling in the sand
Giggling.
Misha,
A snotty faced angel
soaring to the sky.
Jack,
I am a busy man.

Nick, now a “Grandad”
(I wasn’t prepared)
Playing with gusto and glee
Ever present to his grandkids.
Nick, our brother,
Attending to us all.

Pavel
Ensconced in red sofa
Immersed in the World Cup
Caring for Nick
and reminding him “Brreeth, brreeth”
when overcome with emotion.

Park
Steady as always
Wielding a spatula
Masterful at the barbecue.

Jackie, not to forget,
Warmhearted
Coming over for coffee
Ever so talkative
Treating us to pies.

From Oregon, a loving group hug to all,
(This inspiration coming from Sean…
thank you for the sweetness of it.)

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Sea Changes

Posted on 12 December 2009 by Park

For those of you who have been out of touch with us for awhile, we sold Om Sweet Om this spring (2009). It was a sad and glorious day. While we are relieved that it finally sold it also means the end to another chapter of our lives, one that has many happy memories and that taught us a lot about ourselves. We shall miss her and the wonderful people that we encountered while living aboard. If you are among them please keep in touch.

You may also notice that you have been redirected to www.redsummit.com, the new home for our family-related things. This was brought about by the recent decision to incorporate Park’s consulting business as The Ashland Group Limited. Now you finally know what TAGL stands for, and we are glad we finally figured it out! Our email addresses will remain the same for now.

More later, and happy holidays to all!

Park

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Summer’s End

Posted on 7 September 2008 by Park

It must seem like nothing ever happens around here since this page never gets updated, but that’s not the case. It’s true that we have been less active this year than in the past, but that’s because we like where we are and tend to spend more time around home. It also has to do with Park working more than usual.

We did drive down to southern California for Father’s Day weekend, spending a few days at Kim and Steve’s place in the southern Sierra where we surprised Park’s parents with our unexpected arrival. After the weekend we spent a couple more days with Parks’ parents at their house before heading back home up US 395 on the back side of the Sierras. We’ve also made a couple trips to the northern Willamette Valley to visit the wineries, staying with Nick and Tilke en route. The last trip included a couple of nights camping on Fall Creek in the Cascades near Eugene. We also been exploring the local area and discovering places to hike and swim.

Kim visited us earlier this summer and, with Tilke and Nick, we spent a couple of days exploring the area around Crater Lake. Our friends Sharon and Peter visited us over the Labor Day weekend and Park’s parents will be visiting in early October to enjoy the fall color.

We spent three busy weeks in Brunswick working on OM last spring (and are headed there again next month). She has been on the market for over a year now, but the market is pretty slow with fuel prices being so high. We still toy with the idea of shipping her to the west coast somewhere so that we can enjoy her more and eliminate the long trip to Jacksonville twice a year. It would also be nice to get away from the hurricanes. We had our second near miss this week with Hanna and the season is far from over.

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An Update

Posted on 19 October 2007 by Park

Yes, I’m finally getting around to updating the site. The occasion is our recent return from France after a wonderful four week trip that took us from the Vendee on the Atlantic coast, through the Loire valley, on a seven day barge trip through Burgundy, down through the foothills of the Alps to the Mediterranean, back through Provence, across the Massif Central into the Dordogne, to Cognac and back to the Vendee. Exhausting to try as it is to read. All of this in a 23 foot ‘camping car’ that doesn’t fit well on the streets of those wonderful old towns. We have still not recovered. If you are interested, there are pictures to look at.

Life here in Ashland is slowly returning to normal. When we left it was the end of summer, but fall has definitely set in. It’s been raining for the past five days. Well needed, but we had enough gray sky in France.

We’re looking forward to our final play of the season (Tartuffe) for which we’ll be joined by Nick and Tilke. They will be joining us again for Thanksgiving, along with Park’s parents. We’re also looking forward to our first trip to the wineries of the northern Willamette Valley that weekend, right after the lighting of the town on Friday night. Sorry I didn’t grab a picture of the mountains with the dusting of snow we had a couple of days ago, but there’s plenty of time for that.

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