Claire and I have been together for over 7 years, and I have footage from every year. Because of the advancement in technology in the last 7 years I’ve been able to save most of the videos I’ve shot on hard drives, the trick has just been tracking them down. I could do a whole other post on the difficulty of keeping all of your media accessible, and even another post on the advancement of digital media and the headache of transferring video into one unified format – that’s for another day.

In the back of my mind was this idea that whenever I was to ask Claire to marry me I would then start editing a video that I would surprise her with at our wedding. Here alone was the biggest difficulty. It is not easy to keep a secret from the person who knows you best, that you live with, that you share everything with. I spent hours tracking down old hard drives, finding old footage on tape, recapturing, and formatting – not to mention the time looking for music and editing. I had kept a journal near me during the whole process taking notes whenever they came to mind – Luckily, having an idea journal near me is normal and was never questioned by Claire. This is where I would write down scenes I envisioned, songs that I could use, and extra footage that I remembered existed somewhere.

I can’t lie and say this video was just for Claire. In end all that really mattered is that she enjoyed it, but when I was making it I had heaps of other people in mind. Obviously I wanted my friends to like it too. The real trick was making a video that could be enjoyed by anyone. The best I could do was to tell the story of the last 7 years of our lives together, the adventures we’ve gone on, the time we’ve spent with our friends, the beautiful city we live in, and our family whom we love.

While the video may have taken me a long time to produce, it was fairly easy with such a good subject to work with. Obviously this video is dedicated to my best friend and love of my life, Claire.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I enjoyed making it.

Now for some notes, and extras for you.

Music in the order in which it was played.

Happy by NeverShoutNever!
“17 years” by Ratatat
“Land Down Under” by Men at Work
“Great Unknown” by Watercolor
- Trying to track it down – (the Church video)
“La Del Ruso” by Gotan Project
“Scenic World” by beirut
“You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson

These are links to full videos that had clips in Claire’s video. Not everything was online, but this is a pretty good start.

The Church
Land Down Under
My Day in Under a Minute
New Years/ Birthday Haircut
A Fast Week
Paganello 2007

We had Christmas in Claremont, Christmas in Pasadena, and today we will have Christmas in Portland Oregon, if we had 5 more we could just call it Hanukkah this year. Spending time with the family has been a real treat, everyone is growing up quite well, and some of the gifts have been quite creative and artistic. Today’s Christmas in Portland should bring some success as well, as long as the rest of the crew can make it here in the snow. The top photo is at my dad’s house in Claremont, and the bottom photo is of my mom in Pasadena.

The next set of photos may have a lot more snow.

Another photo of Claire shopping!

For Claire and I, Christmas #1 is tomorrow. We’re celebrating our first Christmas at my moms house in Pasadena, I’m sure it’ll look a lot like the traditional Christmas – Snow on the ground, wind rattling the windows, kids sledding outside.

Probably not, maybe more like our Christmas in Australia 2 years ago.

Hopefully we’ll have some photos of our LA Christmas in the next day or two. Then up to Portland where the scenery may be more “its a Wonderful Life” like – not that it’s not a wonderful life down in LA, you know what I mean though.

This blog post is impossible to write. We were in Paris, we got engaged, then we came home and told the story about 45 times.

If I told the the story here it would never be able to change – We would have a place to look back at and say “that’s exactly how it was”. That’s no good. The thing about proposal stories is it gets better over the years. I even hesitate to post photos because 10 years from now we can’t claim that it was a nice, sunny, blue day out.

I’ll give you some details that will always stay the same:
We were at the Sacré Cœur in Paris, France.
Claire looked beautiful.
I had butterflies.
She said yes.

If you want the full story, you should probably call one of us. If you want the full story told with amazing detail, full of romance, and beautiful imagery, ask me to tell the story 25 years from now while our young adult children are listening.

This is one of my favorite photos I took while in Paris. Claire is walking down this glass hallway full of shops. I say “Hey Claire, hang on a second.”

Let’s take note of something real quick. When we go on walks, or hikes, I lead by 10 – 15 feet. When we shop, Claire leads by about the same distance. I’m not exactly sure why this is, I’m open to interpretations.

Claire stops, turns around, and gives me this look that I’m so deeply in love with—I captured it here.

The look: “I’m in the middle of something honey, can’t you see that what I’m doing is very important.”

(But note that she is not mad)

The look continues: “I love you and I am willing to wait, but you must realize that this is a habit of yours worth breaking. When we shop, you are slow, why would you want to take pictures when you could be buying Christmas presents in Paris?”

With a huge smile (and without saying a word), I agree that it WAS completely ridiculous, which she returns with another classic Claire look that I can best describe as lips pressed together, head tilted down, chin to the left, eyes up and looking directly at me. This look says “you know what I mean.” My smile continues and communicates back, “of course I do honey, let’s go shopping…”

It’s a week until Christmas so we spent a solid day walking around looking for gifts. Somehow I only managed to come back with a few—Claire did much better than I did. I have a lot to learn from her when it comes to Christmas shopping—maybe I won’t bring the camera next time.

Of course I will.

I digress, the whole point of this post is that I’m not the only person in my family writing political commentary. Here is my aunt’s article in the Orlando Sentinel.
The main gist – Vote Obama for the kids. Always a good tactic, everyone wants to save the kids. The kids and the seals. I think I’ll write another article about how Obama wants to save the baby seals.

If you looked at this photo and thought “wow, that looks a lot like Whit” – well, I think you’re crazy. But truth is, I am in fact related to this fine looking man.

I’d like to introduce you to William Cubbery Richardson, my grandfather’s grandfather on my mother’s side. I don’t know much about William… in fact I know nothing… but it seems to me that he probably chopped a lot of wood. He looks like someone who chopped a lot of wood – don’t you think? I also think he shaved two times a day, and at the end of the day his beard still looked like this. Actually, this photo was taken ten minutes after a shave.

Cubbery – as his friends called him – once wrestled a grizzly bear, then invited it over for dinner where he cooked some fine salmon with some lemon (straight off his farm’s lemon tree, of course), over a fire that was burning wood that he had chopped with his bare hands because the neighbor had borrowed his ax.

Will was also known for collecting suits.

My Dad has been turning 45 since I turned 13. To be honest, I’m not sure when he’ll hit his fifties – probably when I get married or have children. Then he’ll be 50, or maybe even 55.

My Dad looks young. He’s been riding a stationary bike daily for over 27 years (my life) and finally gave it up for weight training, an inspiration to me for sure. Sure he’s balding – and has been for a while – but the good way. You know, like David Letterman.

My dad’s birthday is impossible to remember. I mean, not literally, for you… but for me it is. After 25 years of my life I finally figured out that it was in September. And I knew that it was a teen – that left seven days that it could possibly be, 13th -19th. So I’ve been narrowing it down. Luckily I have a sister, a mom, a girlfriend, and a handy calendar – who are all much better at remembering my Dad’s birthday. But why can’t I remember it?

My Dad is the most important man in my life. He’s taught me more about life than I could possibly express in a blog post. He has fun, he works hard, he puts family first, and does his best to make everyone feel welcome and included in everything he does.

He is a craftsman, an artist, teacher, musician, comedian, and is humble about it all. Every moment I spend with my Dad, I learn how to be a better person.

Why can I not remember that his birthday is September 18th?

I think I know the answer. He told me the answer a long time ago – indirectly. I haven’t written his birthday down fifty times on a piece of paper. I have not repeated it out loud. I have not made a song or poem about it, nor did I make a flash cards.

But really what I attribute this forgetfulness to is my Dad. Sure he forgets things often, it’s a family trait! Thanks Dad. But it’s not that. I can remember other birthdays for sure. It’s because he’s selfless. He doesn’t require me to remember his birthday, nor does he ask for a present, cake, or a super sweet table saw. The reason I didn’t learn my Dad’s birthday is because of everything I listed before. He didn’t give me a poem, a song, or make me write it out. Instead, he celebrated life with his family on his birthday. To him, the perfect birthday gift is to have all his favorite people around him laughing, smiling, and having fun. Everything else he wanted me to remember, I remember; the songs are still stuck in my head (for example, I’ll always remember that “red means stop, green means go, yellow means wait, even if you’re late”).

This is the greatest gift my Dad has given me. The insight to know that greater than any material object is the gift of friends and family.

Dad, your birthday is September 18th. I can’t guarantee that I’ll remember it moving forward, but regardless – you will get a BIG hug, a huge laugh, and I’ll sing you the loudest Happy Birthday song you ever heard, and I may even make a four-part harmony out of it.

Happy Birthday Dad. I love you.