“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.''

'A duck!... A baby duck.' (Squealing about a birthday card on her third birthday on Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

“If we call these foothills, can we call the little trees 'foot trees?''' (While driving in the foothills.)

'Daddy, how many whoppers are there in those tall trees?' After waking up in the car while driving through Calaveras Big Trees and hearing daddy say, 'Wow, that's a whopper of a tree.'