OurFamily
Our family is made up of a Papa (me, Trey), Daddy, (his husband, Guy), their daughter (Emma). Also living in our home is our good friend (and Emma’s former au pair) Radek. Of course there are Katie, the African Grey parrot and two pet rats (Lucky and Penny). We are in process for adding a second child to our family.
Papa is a molecular biologist (and is sure you all want to read the riveting dissertation entitled “R1 and R2 retrotransposable elements in Arthropods.”) and now is part owner in a small business in genomics research and training. His interests outside of genomics, genetics and evolutionary biology (and in no particular order) include cooking, travel, family, movies, sustainable living, knitting, gardening, history, politics and whatever else his short-term attention span finds. He’s lived in Korea, Germany (twice) and the U.S. and speaks English, Korean and German.
Daddy is a teacher of English and did his graduate work in TESL. He taught English to immigrants in Utah and did extensive volunteer work for refugee and immigration organizations. Since leaving Utah though, he has been a full-time real estate investor (no, not a good time right now for that). His passions are family, independent film, travel, charitable and equal rights work, politics, eating Papa’s cooking, architecture and design and more. He’s lived in the U.S., Nigeria, Thailand (twice), Sweden and Germany and speaks English, Swedish and German.
Emma is a second grader. Her passions are her friends, family, art, writing stories, “little pets”, Harry Potter and all things wizardry, animals and nature, “Full House” and movies. Her favorite food, by far, are bean and cheese burritos (though she dispenses with the tortilla sometimes). She’s learning violin along with Papa, though depending on the day it is with passion or very reluctantly. She has lived in the U.S. and Germany and speaks English and a tad bit of Spanish she learns in school (and a made up language consisting of 5 words).
Radek, Emma’s former Au Pair and our current housemate, is from Poland and is currently a special events director for Sachs Fifth Avenue and fashion stylist. His passions include fashion (of course), movies, friends and more. He’s lived in Poland, Germany and the U.S. and speaks… amazingly enough, Polish, German and English (all extremely fluently… we assume the Polish is good, we know the other two are). He’s learning Spanish now, he’ll be fluent before long.
Lucky and Penny are rats (though they are also called “momo” and “snowball” by Emma. She changed their names to that after a year. Papa still calls them Lucky and Penny). They are very friendly, never bite and are always looking out for food. Their passions are food and playing and chewing. They have only lived in the U.S. and squeak. No English or any other language as far as we can tell.
Of course our family also includes a large and close-knit community of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews and nieces. And a lot of amazing friends here and around the world. We’re blessed.
