Our first of two weeks in the Southland...

...injected us into the daily routines and rituals of Matt and Meesha's family -- diaper-changing, baths, reading books with cardboard slabs for pages -- and of course we're relishing it. Ann is 2, Cara a tender 2 weeks; one is chattering and running, the other simply snuggles. Brian, Christina, and Juliette dropped in to visit on their way home to the Bay Area. -- Chester, meanwhile, resigned recently from his job of six years in order to take a web-developing position with Hume Lake Christian Camps, a mile high in the Sierra Nevada (just outside Kings Canyon National Park).