Believe it or not, this was our first family portrait.  Vonne had bought some package earlier in the year, from Sears I think, and we had this one portrait sitting left that we had to use up before the end of 1994. Em was falling apart at this point from the nonstop chemo of the "induction phase" lasting 13 weeks post-diagnosis in July, so we figured, this might be the only family portrait we'd ever have that included her.

I really love this photo.  My raccoony eyes from fatigue give me away (I was drinking heavily at the time too), and Vonne, starting her second trimester with son Kevin, is looking wan, but she musters something like a smile. Emily is happy enough, if a bit ghostly with her complete lack of hair (notice the missing eyebrows). We are barely holding it together in the fall of 94.

Then again, we held it together enough to write the Vol. 5 retrospective this last August.

The portrait was shot during the "missing" time of Volume 1 (after the first two chapters but before I started the diary), so we include it here because I described the picture in Chapter 4 of Volume 2.