My Four Kids

Dad pride: A Saturday shoutout to the young adults in my life

Two essays this weekend for you. The first is a short update on the activities of Nick, Kate, Emma, and Ben, my four young adults who are all doing interesting things in this world. The second, coming tomorrow, is an in-depth essay focused on our oldest daughter, Kate, and her journey with ADHD/bipolar.

I have four children who range in age from 24 to 29. While I’ve written about each of them at various times in life, I realized this week that they have not been formally introduced to the Substack audience. So here goes:

Nick the Artist

Nicholas, 29, is an artist, designer and illustrator who lives in Durham, N.C. He works for McKinney, a creative and media agency, and has started Nick Cook Design, a freelance business that gives him an opportunity to “put pen to paper, take the simplest of doodles and bring it to life.”

Nick and his wife, Conner, recently celebrated their third wedding anniversary. Check out some of his work above and follow him on Facebook and Instagram (@nickcookdesign).

Kate the Boxer

Katharine, 25, works at Kaizen MMA, a martial arts academy In Falls Church, Va., where she runs youth programs. Kaizen has classes for ages 4 and up, including boxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, and wrestling.

Kate and her husband Matt, who also works at Kaizen, will celebrate their second wedding anniversary on Sunday. Matt, a MMA fighter, helped inspire Kate get into boxing. And she’s doing really well at it, as these photos attest.

Emma the Dancer

Emma, 24, is a dancer and performer who lives with two roommates in New York City. After two years of COVID, she is actively auditioning again while working two jobs and taking dance classes. Recently, she did a photo shoot for Steps on Broadway, modeling merchandise that is featured on the dance studio’s website —https://shop.stepsnyc.com.

Ben the Actor

Ben is the youngest, born a minute after his twin Emma. I’ve written about his journey as an actor who started working professionally when he was 9 and has a role in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story.” The movie started airing on Disney+ and HBO Max this week, and a 9-minute behind-the-scenes look at his big number — “Gee Officer Krupke” — was posted on YouTube as well. Check it out.

Finally: The Return of the Daily Photo

For almost seven years after starting my business in June 2013, I posted a daily photo to my Facebook business page. The photos represented the random things captured during travels to various places and provided an answer to the question I get most often: “What do you shoot?”

The answer: “I shoot what I see.”

As mentioned in a previous post, photography is a way for me to both learn and tell stories. When something grabs my eye, I try to capture it as best I can and share it with the world. Hence, the Daily Photo, slices of life that you can look at, comment on, and occasionally even purchase if you see fit.

When the pandemic hit, the “Daily Photo” posts stopped because I just wasn’t into revisiting places while stuck at home. (It didn’t help that my website provider went out of business during this time, too.)

Now that I’m feeling comfortable and somewhat organized with Substack, I’ve decided to resurrect the “Daily Photo” on March 1. The goal is three-fold: I want to reconnect with my business audience, hopefully sell a few prints, and stay on top of all the photos I take.  

Rather than bombard you with images, my plan is to close out the week’s essays with a single collage showing what I’ve posted. If you’re on Facebook, you can check out the full-size images there. If not, you can view my page by going to the link above. (You don’t have to be on Facebook to see my page.)

Anyway, here are the photos from March 1-6. If you have any questions about them, let me know in the comments or by sending an email.

I hope you’ll come back for tomorrow’s essay. I’m incredibly proud of it.