Happy Birthday to Geoff!

Why a second birthday post for Geoff?

For starters, he deserves more than the few sentences I was able to put up yesterday.

Second, we've got a bunch of great birthday photos. (side note: In the modern age of cellphone cameras and other tiny digital cameras we almost always have a camera on us and can take a pictures of ordinary happenings. Since there is no marginal cost to develop the photos we tend to take lots of pictures. The John B. Dougall camera, though, only came out on special occasions, and thus we have a lot of pictures from Christmas, vacations, and birthdays.)



But enough of my yacking, back to the birthday pictures. The photo here is from Geoff's birthday in 1974. Compare it to yesterday's picture, and do you notice a theme? Mom can get pretty creative with the birthday cakes. Second thought - in Jan1974 the family had 2 adults, 7 & 5 year old boys, 2 little kids, and a baby - that looks like an awful lot of cake for those little bellies (I hope they didn't consume it in the same way the Dougalls would've in the 80s/90s: in under 2 minutes.) Third though - those camoflague bowls sitting on the table must be given a longevity award, because I think they were still in frequent use when I was a teenager.








For the next picture we go back to Tigard. I love the way Geoff got himself all gussied up in his finest shirt to open his gifts. I also love the way his younger siblings are so anxiously gathered around to share in the birthday excitement.



And speaking of sibling involvment . . . . my memory of Geoff's birthdays will always be mixed with memories of my birthday. For a number of years we would open presents at the same time (he'd sometimes get mine & vice versa), we would share the cake (I'm positive that since he was older he always got to cut it), and generally have twice the excitement. I wish there was a photo that really captured it. The best I can locate are the two below.

Here we are in 1984 working side-by-side to open gifts.