At 11:01 PM on April 16, 2013, I sent the following email to some co-workers:
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Title: Joel Out for a While
This is not a joke
My house caught on fire tonight. Everyone pk (i am only one home). Fire trucks still.here, I have not been inside bur surely most things totaled. I don’t know when I will be back in commission but.upcoming travel.likely cancelled.
Not sure I will be in tomorrow.
Will email when.I know more.
Joel
Joel Grossman
Location Labs
sent from my mobile
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Today, one year later, our house looks like this:
One Year Later
and our (growing) family is all smiles:
Family Picture, March 2014
All in all, it has been a good year. We have many of you to thank for all if your help and support through the challenge and for that, we feel very lucky. Much love to you all.
Since his third birthday, Ezra has been doing a lot of growing up in preparation for becoming a big brother. His latest step is disposing of his pacifier, once and for all. We captured the moment on video, now posted in the Photo Gallery.
So I got a new sistah comin’, see, so I’m gettin’ rid of this paci…
We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our baby sister (due in just a couple of weeks!) but we stole a moment to take one last (maternity) photoshoot as a family of four, now posted in the Photo Gallery.
Even while pregnant and “stuck” in temporary housing, Holly managed to plan another jumpy-house birthday extravaganza to celebrate Avi turning 5 and Ezra reaching the ripe old age of 3. Pictures in the Photo Gallery!
GFW fans, a number of you pinged me yesterday asking about the Tahoe pictures. Where were the pictures of the actual SKIING?
Fans, skiing is an ACTION SPORT. We don’t capture action sports with simple still photography at GFW. We rock the VIDEO. What do you think this is, the 80’s? I hope you aren’t using a dial-up modem for this 3 minute 15 second masterpiece of some of the most fly skiing that you have ever seen from a 5 year old and a 3 year old—it was HOT on the slopes (and not just because the temperature was 55 degrees).
Despite the unseasonably warm and dry weather, we made the trek up to Tahoe a few weekends ago with some friends and all of the kids (age 3 and above) tried skiing. Some photos now in the Photo Gallery.
This past November, we had our first “east bay” family photoshoot. Yes, it has been about four months since it happened but hey(!), we’re still in temporary housing, so updating the blog can be kind of tricky.
When Holly and I arrived home tonight, our babysitter informed us that Avi had bitten Ezra. The boys were in bed but wide awake, so we paid them a visit (they share a bedroom). We spoke to Avi about dealing with his feelings in a more productive and constructive way. We talked about how we don’t hurt other people’s bodies in this family.
Ezra (apparently our 3 year old biblical scholar) was watching the entire discussion and seized the opportunity to make a timely analogy: “Avi, you’re like Haman.”
Where have all of the updates gone? Well, since the fire, we’ve been trying to get our headquarters back online (still a work in progress), which has made blog updating difficult. Further, with both Avi and Ezra growing into crime-fighting superheros, it has been more difficult to capture pictures and video.
However, a friend recently went undercover and captured secret footage of an underground dojo, where she caught Avi doing some Taekwondo training. We’re now making this video accessible to the public in the Gallery.
