17 posts tagged “esther”

So, I like, went on this trip right? To this little country called Scotland...

Apr 30, 2007
9 comments

I used to have a rule when taking photos: never take pictures that don't have people in it. So if you want a photo of Big Ben for example, you must tell your spouse/offspring/sibling/dentist etc to go and stand in front of Big Ben so that they are included in the photo. This makes photos much less boring to look back on through the years.

Well, I've broken that rule immeasurably recently, especially on my last trip. I was just reading through my travel journal which has a whopping ONE entry for my UK trip. (The previous entry, written over spring break, very wisely begins, "Reading until 4am does not make for a harmonious day the next day and I should not do that again.")

The one entry from the UK reads, (photos included for those that are visual learners, like me :) (Oh, and notice how beautifully and poetically I write when I think these words will never see the light of my blog?)

April 10th 2007

Yesterday was spent at Beth's house in Chester. We ran in the morning, then went into town. Went to the cathedral. Had chips for tea (bad chips, says Esther) and watched Columbo.

Esther in profile

5 comments

Got Religion?

3 comments

(I think this is one of my favourite pictures from the whole trip.)

Me outside Chester Cathedral

2 comments

Today drove 4 hours to Edinburgh. Stopped at Gretna Green on the way and explored graveyard and had a delicious bacon and egg roll in a little cafe.

Gretna Green Cafe and Esther

In Edinburgh

- Royal Mile

Royal Mile

- Edinburgh Castle (didn't pay the required 11 pounds to go in)

Edinburgh Castle

- Lunch at The Witchery, one of Edinburgh's best restaurants

Dessert!

(You get the impression that The Witchery is not the kind of place that encourages food photography. Of course, I didn't let that stop me. It's supposed to be one of the top restaurants in Edinburgh, but the food was really nothing to write home about. Except dessert. Dark chocolate torte with lavender ice cream - divine!)

- Staying in Kew House Hotel, which is fantastic from the super-friendly hotelier to the complimentary whiskey and shortbread in the rooms.

Why You No Want My Love?

- Ghost tour in the graveyard at night

- General exploring and lots of walking

- Jenners

And that's it. All I had to say, apparently, about my trip. I should add:

- National Gallery of Scotland

Esther in typical tourist shot

- The Elephant House Cafe, made famous by J.K. Rowling (and the funny thing is, I bet they were really annoyed with her at the time, for taking up a table when she only bought one cup of coffee.)

Magic!

- A pilgrimage to see the grave of Greyfriars Bobby

Bobby's Grave

Seriously, Edinburgh is such a wicked city. I would love to live there, and I've never come close to thinking that about a capital city before.

Vox Hunt: The History of My Hair

Mar 9, 2007
2 comments

Show us your hairstyles over the years.
Submitted by Lena Katrin.

Let's see.

First there was no hair worth speaking of.

Baby Hannah and Esther

1 comment

Then it was really, really awful. Hideous. But I (almost) don't care who knows about it.

There are no words for this hair

4 comments

From about age 13 onwards it's looked like it does in this picture, which I took today. I'll say one thing, and that's that there is certainly no shortage of it.

Hairy

Except for that one year when I looked like a boy - which I talk about here

It's okay that I have a boy's haircut because Libby does too

Vox Hunt: Best Beach

Mar 2, 2007
8 comments

Show us the best beach you have visited.
Submitted by Marko.

This question gave me an excuse to leisurely thumb through the photo albums that cover the four years that we lived in Hawaii. Because my favourite beaches are definitely in Hawaii, one huge reason being that they are so familiar to me, another reason being that they are utterly fantastic and there's a reason that people come from all over the world to lie on them. I don't think there's many beaches on Oahu that we haven't explored. I don't have one particular favourite; several sprang to mind, but all these picks focus on the fact that they're good family beaches.

Waikiki Beach

11-17-2006 11;08;52PM

6 comments

Waikiki Beach

This is a great beach for families. It doesn't matter what the weather is like elsewhere, it's nearly always nice on Waikiki. When the kids were small they loved to stay by the man-made wall that acts as a surf break and creates a kind of huge swimming pool. As they got older they would venture into the waves with their boogie boards, or let themselves get thrown around in the shallows with the tail-end of the waves breaking over them.

While we were living there they started a Movie on the Beach program every Saturday and Sunday evening, with food vendors and live bands before the movie. We went nearly every weekend, mostly because it was free and we were broke students, but it was also a ton of fun and you could meet groups of friends down there and enjoy dinner and a movie, family style.

Movie on the beach

Turtle Beach

I don't know the real name of this beach; everyone just called it Turtle beach, for obvious reasons. It was up on the North Shore somewhere and was pretty obscure and tricky to find (for me anyway, but then any one who knows me understands my famous sense of direction and lack thereof.)

Anyway, there would nearly always be big old green sea turtles sunning themselves on the sand.

Turtle Beach-Cousins

2 comments

Tiny Them

With Esther

Makapuu and Baby Makapuu

Makapuu is a good beach, but Baby Makapuu, a little further on, is a kid's dream beach. I can't count the number of hours my kids and nieces and nephews spent scrambling over rocks, collecting sea creatures from rock pools and generally having a whale of a time. It's not the cleanest beach, (sometimes while the kids played I would pick up beer cans and broken glass - great advertisment, eh?), but it's also not a tourist destination so the beach was never particularly crowed.

Makapuu II

Makapuu

Baby Makapuu

I'm not entirely sure how I could have managed to position my photos less how I want them, but there it is.

A few more shots...

2 comments

Oh, and just as a comparsion...here is an English beach in June or July vs. a Hawaiian beach in November.

English beach, English summer

Hawaiian beach, Hawaiian winter

I'm just saying.

Share the Vox Love

Feb 26, 2007
2 comments

My nagging has paid off. My persistence has triumphed. My continual blathering on has born fruit.

In other words, I have finally succeeded in getting my twinny to blog on Vox.

(Who couldn't love that little face? :)

It's just one entry, but it's a start. Now all you good people in my neighborhood, get over there and give her some Vox love! Befriend her now! She did just run a grueling half marathon after all.

Vox Hunt: Symmetry

Feb 24, 2007
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Show us symmetry.

Not to be all me, me, me....

Symmetry

but I just thought this was mildly amusing. Twins, see?

Vox Hunt: From The Photobooth

Feb 20, 2007
7 comments

Show us a photobooth photo.

Like, an old-fashioned photo booth?

Photo booth shots

1 comment

These were taken almost 12 years ago when, at the tender age of 17, we were let loose in the wilds of America.

The top photo is inscribed on the back, "Big Girl Blue, what larks we had! More fun and frolics than a lung frog in frilly, flamboyant flares! I'll miss you and all our lovers tiffs. Love you, E."

Vox Hunt: So Meta

Jan 30, 2007
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Show us a photo of someone else taking a photo.
Submitted by ydnar.

D

Damian on Christmas morning. I think Todd took this trying out my new camera.

Seth

My brother Seth, taken visiting him in Norwich.

Esther

Esther, sitting in a heap of a laundry.

QotD: Call The Fashion Police

Jan 23, 2007
4 comments

You must have been a fashion victim at least once in your life. What hideous blunder did you commit?
Submitted by Tina.

I don't usually follow the trends, but I'm ashamed to admit that I went along with the whole "wear-your-knickers-on-your-head" fad in the early 80's.

01-23-2007 05;53;33PM

I know! What was I thinking?

Oh, we make each other laugh

Jan 4, 2007
5 comments

Beauty Queens, originally uploaded by hannahliesje.

No one else laughs, especially not our husbands, but I suppose that's fine if you make each other laugh.

Life returns to normal

Jan 1, 2007
2 comments

Some version of normalcy anyway.

There are 2000 loads of laundry waiting to be washed. I want to take a bath but there's not a clean towel in the house. I doubt there's a clean glass or plate in the kitchen either, but I'm rather trying to avoid finding out. In other words, yesterday was chaotic and awesome and sad, (and mostly sad). I returned from dropping Damian, Esther, and the kids off at the airport by about 10pm, so we did get to ring in the new year as a family. I just managed to stay awake until midnight.

Whenever Esther and I leave one another, it's like - well, it's like I've lost a bit of myself, because, without trying to sound incredibly deep, it's like we are each other, as The Beautiful South said, and nobody who is not a twin could understand that, just as there are many relationship complexities I could never understand.

Last January as I was dropping Esther off at the airport, we were wondering when we would next see each other. It turned out that, totally unplanned and unexpectedly, two weeks later she was meeting me and the kids off a plane in London and we spent the next three months together. I know that's not going to happen again, but it does reinforce that you never quite know the direction life will take. Maybe we will be together sooner than we anticipate?

It was a fantastic visit, even if I do feel, whenever family come to visit, my life was fine before you came, thanksverymuch, now that you've left there's a big hole where you should be.

But oh we laughed...