Frank-&-Hilda-Shilander, originally uploaded by kerussojc.

I recently had a computer snafu that caused me to lose all my pictures on my hard drive. Fortunately I had them backed up on CD and DVD. However, I found a disc my dad sent me that included this photo. It also had a ton of old pictures from my childhood and my parents’ childhoods. This pictures is significant because I didn’t know much about my grandfather and even less about my grandmother. She died when my mom was an baby and he died before my parents were married. My mom’s step mom was my grandmother growing up. I had never actually seen a picture of either of them until today, the day I am posting this.

As many of you know, my son Michael and I took a father-son trip to DC during the last week of March. It was a wonderful trip. I recommend that all fathers should take their sons on a trip like this. I let Michael pick where and we went and saw the sights. It is a memory both of us will have forever. I chose his 13^th year because that is a coming of age time in a young man’s life. The Jews chose to put their boys through a Bar Mitzvah and it was the official time of becoming a man. So we chose 13. But don’t just pick what we did. Find a time. Another friend of mine suggested when they graduate from High School. Whatever. Just do it!

Day at the River
This video was shot during our recent trip to the mountains. We stopped along the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed some time by the river. There were many other’s there when we arrived doing the same.