Marian Returns

Marian returned home last night. She hadn't been home in just over a year, having had her first aneurism last April.

From Ron's email:

She has been in Northwestern Hospital in Chicago since December. But will now stay at home and receive outpatient therapy to continue her recovery. Steve has applied to medicare for home health care but will have to stay home with her until it is approved. Hopefully that will not take long. As wonderful as this is, it may also be some of the hardest time they will endure.

But no matter what happens, the Coddington family is back together under one roof and that has to be good.


Aside from a little confusion with the taxi service on getting Marian home from the airport, their trip was smooth. Steve, Grant, and Chloe took turns cutting the hospital bracelets from Marian's wrist, and everyone got a kiss goodnight.

Steve asked me to meet him at the airport and to be there when the kids finally got to see mom again. Here is a bit of what I witnessed.

A fun assignment

I had a good time covering the 5th annual Hernando County Parks and Recreation Department's Father Daughter dance. In this first photo, Todd Klukowski, 34, dances with his daughter, Kaitlyn, 7, at St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Brooksville Friday night. Klukowski said that this is his third time at the dance, he has four daughters so each year he brings a different one. "Every year they get to pick the color of their dress and a shirt of matching color so I never know what I'm wearing," Klukowski said, "Last year I was in purple, and the year before I was in pink." I heard a lot of good stories like that during the evening. They might not be portfolio pieces, but I really enjoyed making these pictures.

Sometimes it gets cold in Florida...

...and that usually means I'm out of bed before 5 a.m. and out the door by 6, scrambling to make a picture of frost on something before the sun comes out and it melts away.

This time I headed for a U-pick blueberry farm where the proprietors had spent all night sleeping in 2 hour shifts and making sure their sprinklers were running to ice their bushes. The temperature bottomed out around 22 degrees, though the thermometer I photographed was in the path of a sprinkler and got stuck just under 30.

I know it's been forever since I've updated this, I'll be making an effort to be better about it.