'Daddy, how many whoppers are there in those tall trees?' After waking up in the car while driving through Calaveras Big Trees and hearing daddy say, 'Wow, that's a whopper of a tree.'

The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

'The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.'

'Divorce is when mommy and daddy yell at each other then they spread apart. Then they put up a 'for sale' sign in front of the house and they spread farther and farther apart until they can't come back ever again and it's very sad.' (teaching her 4-year old brother)

'Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.'