In April, 2018, we took a trip to the Midwest to visit the Jones family in Detroit and the Marcus family in Rochester Minnesota.

The visit to Rochester was on the second leg of our trip, and on a night when we were not solving murder mysteries or gambling on bingo at the bar, we were treated by Miranda to a delicious Chicken Broccoli Cheese Casserole. Miranda Marcus is the oldest of the two Marcus children, the other being Liam.

Miranda is 12 years old, and I have known her since the day she was born. In fact, I was with her mom, Alisa, and father, Justin, when Alisa went into labor with Miranda. We were all living in California at the time, and a few months after she was born in 2006, Justin asked if I would videotape Miranda seeing the ocean for the first time.

I put together the following video in 2006, which is also the first video I was able to edit using consumer software on a PC, likely because of advancements in computer memory and storage capabilities that hadn’t existed up until that time. Prior to 2006, I had not edited video since leaving Marine Corps Air Station Yuma Arizona in 2001, where I had been stationed during a four year enlistment as a combat photographer.