Childhood Photos #2

Well, here you go. Nearly a year after the first round (Childhood Photos #1), I finally got ahold of the second disk that went to my sister Nori. If that Cryder strangeness caused you to wonder about my childhood, well, here's all the explanation you ever needed.

As always, it's probably best to jump to the bottom and then scroll up to see things in order (more or less).

Nothing like a good nap after dinner, right? Great photo to end things with...

Christmas dinner (I believe this was the year dad shot his first goose, and good 'ol Molly nearly drowned retrieving it. It was her or the goose, and well, as you can see here, the goose got it!)

The family portrait.

Beneath the Christmas tree.

I think you could safely say Nori and I are stoked. Either that or we're doing our own version of the snow dance.

He's loving it....

Jake, and his rocking horse (which my dad made).

Christmas morning!

Glory. A moment of silence ("See Santa, we really have been good! We really can get along without fighting! Why, this is what it's like all the time here in the Cryder houselhold! Really!")

With stockings and everything (Nori looks stoked, and I just look like Jr. Santa, in my cool red sleeper)

Decorating the tree...

Oh yeah, a juniper for a Christmas tree, in a little trailer on the prarie with cool 70's paneling, right smack dab in the middle of nowhere in eastern Montana... ah! It just doesn't get any better than this!

Not only did he spot it, but it looks like he helped cut it down. If you look carefully, you'll see that the tree is a juniper (When's the last time you saw someone using a juniper for a Christmas tree? And when was the last time you saw someone as excited about it as Nori? I told you Christmas trees were hard to come by in eastern Montana...)

Of course winter means Christmas is near, and Christmas means you need to get a tree. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a Christmas tree in eastern Montana? "Hey, dad, look, IT'S A TREEE!!!!" (Whew, looks like Jake has spotted one)

Winter blizzard, back on the farm.

Oh yeah, that was good cake, huh Jake?

Nori's thinking, "How come HE gets the candles???"

An earlier birthday, this one my 6th. Love the look on Jake's face there in the background - he probably doesn't know many words at this point in his life, but it's obvious he knows what mom's dishing up: "CAKE!!!!!!"

Look ma! I'm a vampire! :-)

Best thing about breakfast in the mountains? Bacon tastes better than anywhere else in the world.

Not sure where this was taken, but it looks like it was on my birthday (which we always spent up in the mountains, when we lived near enough to get to the mountains. I'm guessing I had just turned 8 here, which would have been May of 1977).

Mom and Nori.

And there's my mom on the horse she broke all by herself - Aacha (an arabian)

Me and mom, out for a ride. (Admit, you wish YOU had a shirt like mine, don't you?)

Nori's birthday number 5.