After our time in Leeds, we said good-bye to Bara and Tim and Terry and headed back to London. Since the day was primarily spent on the train, I don’t have many photos, but suffice it to say we had a great time on the train doing things like napping and playing cards and reading.

Upon our arrival to London, we boarded the Tube and headed to Kensington (Earl’s Court stop) and got to our hotel for the next two nights, The London Lodge Hotel. It was a very nice hotel and the staff were super friendly and helpful. Sadly, Erik realized that in addition to leaving his jacket in Leeds, his passport was also still there. Rachel quickly made arrangements to head back up to Leeds to collect Erik’s passport because there was no guarantee the Post would make it in time due to the weekend. We sent Rachel off and then headed out to explore Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and Harrod’s.

Kensington Palace was closed when we got there, but here are some photos of us outside the gate (except Grandpa who hates all royal families):

Erik and the palace gate

J&K outside the palace

After exploring Harrod’s a bit, we were hungry! So we stopped at the closest place we could find which happened to be an Italian restaurant. We all ordered some delicious pasta, except Grandpa who ordered a club sandwich.
Here’s a baby octopus from Dad’s dinner:

mmm, delicious.

The next day was Sunday and we went to the Matins service at Westminster Abbey. It was enjoyed by all, especially Mom, Dad and Jonathan. Erik and I were a little bored but Jonathan sat between us so we didn’t cause a ruckous. After church, we went back to the hotel where we collected Grandpa after Rachel’s arrival and we all headed to the National Gallery to see some art. Wow, that place is amazing! We spent most of the afternoon there with a little break for some sandwiches from Pret.

We went back to the hotel and dropped off the parents and Grandpa and the kids headed out for a curry! It was great fun for the four of us to adventure a bit in London. We went to Masala Zone in Covent Garden.

Jonathan is SUPER excited for curry!

Rather than curry, we had thalis and mango lassi.

Thali is delicious!

And then, Erik remembered he’s the youngest sibling and an Amuricahn, so he did this:

scrape, scrape, scrape

Waste not, want not.

After that delightful display, we wandered to Leicester Square for some gelato. It was delish.

Rachel enjoys her gelato

We split pistachio gelato and I got a decaf cappuccino

Here they are all full of gelato. Erik also had a cappuccino-not decaf

We hung out a bit and made our way to Piccadilly Circus and then back to the hotel for one last night of sleeping before heading back to the States.

Monday morning we got up and had breakfast at the hotel (it was delicious as well) and then headed out for some souveniers from the trip and so Rachel could see Harrod’s.

Here’s one last family photo:

Eskephersons at the Harrod's Food Hall

One last photo with Rache before she left for Leeds

We did our final packing up, headed to the tube stop and got to the airport in plenty of time to have a late lunch/early supper before our flight. Luckily, there was a Wagamama at the airport! I heart Wagamama so Jonathan and I ate there whilst Mom, Dad, Erik and Grandpa enjoyed some other airport fare.

Jonathan enjoys an elderflower soda

Jonathan's plate-it was SO good!

Then we went to the gate to board the plane. Except the gate wasn’t really the gate! It was just a stairwell! Then we had to RUN to the gate, which againwasn’t the gate, but an entry point for a shuttle bus! I was very glad we made it onto that shuttle, especially since the rest of the fam was already to the plane. Upon arriving to the plane, Jonathan kindly put my backpack into the overhead bin, then promptly smashed his thumb meat. It was really sad.
Here’s what it looked like:

Ouchy!

So we said, “See ya later England! Thanks for the good times and the injury!” and sat back for our flight home. Oh boy, was I glad we were able to take such an enjoyable trip together. The Eskesens and McPhersons make a good traveling team! Where will we go next? I’m not sure but Grandpa has mentioned this.

The photo above was taken about two years ago, when I last switched phones. 

The phone on the right is the new one, or was at the time. It’s a Cingular 3125, the extremely unimaginitive name given to a device from fledgling manufacturer HTC. 

The phone’s code name (I am not making this up) was Star Trek, due in part to its futuristic styling. And it had the technology to back it up on the inside, too: Windows Mobile 5.0, baby. It was slow to start, slow to turn off, and slow to perform some totally inessential operations like opening a text message, but that thing synchronized contacts and calendars like synchronizing contacts and calendars was going out of style, which it definitely wasn’t in 2007.

Phones are our generation’s most persistent fashion accessory, like a piece of clothing you wear every day for two years.  And if you’re a big geek like me, you do a lot with that little hunk of cheaply manufactured plastic and silicon.  It’s a little sad to see it go.  It took a beating, that thing–in its later years, it was covered in duct tape and frequently turned itself off, as though it had acquired the gradual narcolepsy of the elderly.

There are hundreds of text messages from Kelly on that phone–I never could bring myself to delete them–and calendar appointments recording, in sporadic detail, the things I did with my life for the last two years. It somehow managed to synchronize the contacts from an old address list I had, bringing old friends to mind every time I started typing numbers.  It was the phone I used to call 911 when my sister had a seizure, the one in my pocket when I proposed to my wife, the one I checked for messages when we returned home from South Africa.

And it had a camera, with one entire glorious megapixel of resolution.  I took hundreds of photos with that thing, and every one of them turned out awful.  (Here they are.)  I didn’t care. It was often the only camera I had on me.  Those moments, many of them, would have been lost. 

Today my number port completed, and the 3125 lost its signal for the very last time.  As I was preparing it for its decommissioning, I found a few dozen photos I’d taken with it still in its memory, artifacts from the past few years I had never cleaned out but never did anything with either. 

So here, in tribute to an old friend (albeit a mechanical one), is a slideshow I made with those photographs.  Enjoy.

Start the Slideshow

I can’t tell you how many coversations I’ve had that have proceeded something like this:

Anonymous: Hi, my name is Anonymous.
Jonathan: Oh, hi, I love your books. My name is Jonathan.
Anonymous: Cool… so, you have any brothers or sisters?
Jonathan: Yes, six.
Anonymous: WHAT?! Are you (Mormon, Catholic, Mormon Catholic, crazy)?

For some people, the idea of a family with seven children is absolutely unthinkable. If you have, say, one brother and a sister, Anonymous might proceed to ask where they live, or how old they are. But at seven, all they can do is try to recover from the surprise, and perhaps ask “where I fall in the lineup.” (I always say that “I am the eldest,” though I am aware that this only further propagates our image as home-schooled fuddy-duddies.)

So, if you read this blog, I thought I would introduce you to my family, which really doesn’t feel all that large to me at all. Here is a photograph of us, taken this past Christmas Day:

Now, I realize that there are a lot of people here, and it does not help that their faces are about the size of postage stamps for mice. So here’s what you can do to learn some names:

1. Open the annotated photo, and move your mouse over it. Look, boxes appear on each person’s head! Those will tell you each person’s name, with annotations for non-immediate family.
2. Got everyones’ names? Good! Open the large photo to see what we actually look like.

Perhaps one day I’ll give you a more personal introduction to each of my siblings. But for now, Anonymous, I hope this helps de-mystify the McPherson clan just a little bit for you. And the next time someone tells you they’re from a big family, smile and think of the McPhersons. We’re regular people. There are just a few more of us.

Well, here we are at the close of 2008. The parties are starting, the timers are counting down, and and if you’re anything like me, you are sitting down at the computer after a quiet day and thinking: … man, what did we do this year? Where did the time go?

So here, as much for my reference as for yours, are the events of 2008, as told through pictures.

January.

Janary is easy. In January, we got married–not just married, but married married married married married. Some folks warned us that the first year of marriage would be the hardest; others assured us it would be the easiest. So far, there’s no way to tell who’s right but one thing’s for sure: we love being married to each other and have had a wonderful year together. I’m excited to see what 2009 has in store for us.

We honeymooned in Tulum, Mexico for a week. It was wonderful.

February.

When people get married in the movies, the next scene has them living in a perfectly organized house. Real life is not like the movies. In real life, you go back from the honeymoon to your real job, and in February we both worked hard, unpacked the house, and found time to spend with our friends and family. This month’s photo is of Kelly with her sister Rachel and brother Erik, who’ve both been great friends to us this year.

We celebrated the conclusion of our first month of marriage with a trip to the Space Needle. And our friends Dan and Carrie got engaged. 2008 was to become the Year of the Wedding.

March.

In March, we celebrated Easter with Kelly’s family. We also had a dinner party and busted out the china for the first time (it wasn’t the last). It started to feel a lot more like we were actually married, and a lot less like we had just put all of our things into one house.

April.

In April, Wedding Season began in earnest with Lee and Gaila’s ceremony on April 12th. This photo of Kelly is from their wedding.

The weather finally started to warm up, and we began working on the yard; one of us (Jonathan) could not recall so much as planting a bulb, whereas the other (Kelly) is a bit of an agricultural genius, but we made progress despite the skill imbalance!

May.

We travelled a lot this year, both in and out of the States. In May, we flew to Wisconsin for a funeral on Kelly’s mother’s side of her family. Jonathan learned where Kelly’s green thumb came from and got to meet many of her relatives on a farm in a small, quiet town.

June.

Kelly had her first 29th birthday in June. Friends and family packed our little house and yard. There was cake, there was ice cream, and there was badminton.

Later that month: more weddings.

July.

In July, we flew to Kansas City for the wedding of our friend Carrie’s sister, Kristen. Her family turned out to be tremendously fun, and we were almost eaten by an enormous spider.

July was also the month of the Annual Family Reunion. We camped out (i.e. stayed in cabins open to the cool night air) at Ramblewood near Sequim, went crabbing (Jonathan’s first time), and read books out on the pier.

August.

Gardening isn’t the only way in which Jonathan and Kelly’s families differ. The McPherson family has never been much for home improvement projects; the Eskesens rather enjoy them. What started as an attempt to prevent our desired paint color from clashing with the current color of the vanity ended up consuming much of August with a full-scale bathroom remodel, complete with a new tile floor, pedestal sink, and even a bit of drywall repair.

We are no longer afraid of home improvement projects.

September.

In September, we took another trip: this one to visit Jonathan’s grandfather and step-grandmother, neither of whom Jonathan had seen in almost a decade. We stayed with aunt Teri and uncle Russ and explored Hollywood and LA in addition to spending some quality time with grandparents.

And two more weddings: Christi and Michael wed in mid-September, and Dan and Carrie followed two weeks later. It’s been pretty great to have so many newlywed friends.

October.

In October, we celebrated Jonathan’s 28th birthday. Kelly wore an “I (Heart) My Husband” shirt for the occasion. And, for symmetry, he received a matching shirt. Here we are, in our matching shirts. I know, I know, we’re very cute.

November.

November saw the wedding season draw to a close; these are our friends Abigail and Adam tying the knot. In November, we also hosted our first Thanksgiving, and Jonathan barbecued a turkey with some help from Kelly’s father.

December.

In December, we flew to South Africa for about two weeks to tell some kids about how valuable they really are, to the world, each other, and ultimately to God. If you’ve been reading this blog at all then you probably already know the story of our first mission trip together, so I won’t retell it. Suffice to say it had more impact on us than anything else in our first year of marriage.

December also brought record-breaking snow and ice to the Seattle area for a week, plus Jonathan’s family came in for a week of Christmas shenanigans. These happened to be on the same week. Great fun ensued.

So–it’s been a big year. We’ve been in three countries and as many states, we’ve found out what it’s like to be married, we’ve celebrated with our families and friends and learned a whole lot about each other and about God.

I wonder what 2009 has in store. We’ll start finding out in a few hours. We can’t wait.