Tom & Jen, newly weds.

I grew up as the youngest of four children. I have two older sisters and an older brother. The picture to the right is of my brother, Thomas, and his new wife, Jennifer. They just got married in August 2006 and this was obviously taken on the big day. It was weird to see him get married. We've been single for a lot of years.  But Jennifer is great and they're off to a good start. As of now, I'm the only one left in the family who's not married.

Thomas and Jennifer live in Toronto. He was a chef for years but recently decided to go back to school and is currently in his forth year studying Urban Planning at Ryerson University. He should be graduating in 2008 and I know he's looking forward to earning a regular full-time income again. Jennifer is a custom seamstress and is generally self-employed, doing jobs for various people and also working with other colleagues in her field.

Annette's family.

My oldest sister (and oldest sibling), Annette, lives just outside Quebec City. She's married to Clement and they have two beautiful girls, Marie-Joelle and Alexandrine. Both were adopted from China. Marie-Joelle tops the academic charts and Alexandrine is the comedian of the family. Annette works in the Engineering Department of Laval University and Clement is a leading professor and researcher in Robotics at the same university. In fact, Clement played a role designing the "hand" attached to the large robotic arm used on the space shuttle.

Denise's family.

Denise is the second oldest. She is also married and lives in Kokomo Indiana. Her husband Christian is a professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Indiana, Kokomo. They have two energetic boys, Renaud and Eric. Renaud is a rising baseball star and Eric will one day be a movie producer, I have no doubt. Denise also teaches from time to time in Chemistry but focuses most of her time driving the boys from one activity to the next. Between school, baseball, soccer and boy scouts, their minivan is getting plenty of miles!

My dad.

My dad, my hero. He's the most self-reliant under-stated man I have ever met. He's pioneered his whole life himself and never asked for help from anyone. He never brags. He never shows off. He never asked for credit or recognition. Yet, he put himself through school, found my mom in Switzerland, moved to Canada and was always the voice of reason in our family. Believe me; he deserves plenty of credit.

Keep smiling!

My mother grew up in a small town along Lake Zurich in Switzerland. It's called Uznach. She was a bit of a trail-blazer herself, getting herself a driver's license (rare for a Swiss woman at that time) and accepting a job at Oxford after her schooling. She eventually returned to Switzerland and was the secretary of the Physics department. That's where she met my dad. He was doing his post-doc at the time. Soon after, my mom took a job in Bloomington and my dad eventually caught up with her back in the US. And the rest, as they say, is history. Years later, after the four of us were already in school, my mom started teaching piano in our basement and had students coming in and out of our house for 20 years.

My parents have been happily married for 45 years. They still live in Vancouver, in the same house I grew up in. I visit more than the others because I live closer than anyone else and I also still have a number of high school friends I keep in touch with.