The perfect gift

I'm convinced watermelon was the forbidden fruit

Twice in my life, I’ve been given a whole watermelon for my birthday. One year, when I was a young teenager, my mom said, with a twinkle in her eye, “Go up to your room. Your birthday present is on your bed.” And there sat a green watermelon with a big, red bow tied around it. Because it was all mine, I was allowed to eat the heart right out of it—guilt-free.

Identity crisis

Mark with his birthday waffles and ice cream

For a few minutes, his name was Travis. You would think, after waiting three and a half years for our fifth child to join us, we could have come up with the right name for him. But when he arrived, his identity and name remained a mystery. 

It didn’t take long, though, to figure out this baby boy was not Travis at all. He was Mark. In naming all the others, I let Ken have the final say, but this time I insisted our boy take his name, “Kenneth,” at least as his middle name. After all, I’d borne the man four sons and, by gosh, one of them was going to carry his father’s first name.

Today Mark Kenneth is 14 years old and is, coincidentally, much like his father. Yet, although we've known him a decade and a half and feel certain we got the name right, we’re still figuring out who he is. 

Counting on change

The view of Fremont's hills from my kitchen window

Some things you can just count on: October 31 will always be Halloween; December 25 will always mean it's Christmas day; and January 1 will forever be the start of a new year. And May 17 in Fremont, California, always marks the end of green hills.


No matter how lush they are throughout the spring, our signature green hills always turn utterly, completely, and unmistakably wheat-brown by May 17—up until this year, anyway. It’s such a random date that I never would have remembered except that it was the birthday of our long-ago friend and realtor Sterling Nicolaysen.