What a weekend we’ve had!

Middle child is elbows-deep in old family photos, thoroughly invested in tracing the family tree. She’s been piecing together names, faces, and stories, and honestly, I’m both impressed and slightly alarmed at how quickly she’s gone from casual curiosity to full-time historian.
Among the stacks of fading prints and handwritten captions, we stumbled upon a real gem—an early school trip photo of my father-in-law. It’s a British seaside classic: The kids are knee-deep in a freezing puddle of seawater on some windswept beach, their faces caught between grimaces and chattering teeth. What makes it extraordinary, though, is what’s hidden in plain sight.
In that photo, alongside my father-in-law, stands his brother, who tragically passed away just a couple of years later. And, in the same frame, there’s my mother-in-law—only a classmate at the time, blissfully unaware of the life they’d eventually build together. Fast forward through 68 years of marriage, 5 children, 13 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren, and it feels almost magical to imagine them there, two kids on a school trip, completely unaware of what was to come.
If only they’d known! But maybe that’s the beauty of it all—the way life quietly unfolds, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary legacies