Restful

After a quick trip into Northport for some frozen custard (as a family we are obsessed) we stopped the car in someone's driveway so I could take a picture of the boats.  A peaceful night: still water, lots of boats and the sound of lapping water - that's pretty restful.

RESTFUL

Repeating Patterns

A selection of Seb's ties.   My aunt and uncle call seb "Twiga," which means giraffe in swahili but I am not sure who gave him that tie.

REPEATING PATTERNS

Renewal

This is how today's photo came about:
Gemma rushes into the house after a long day at work and, in desperation, says "Seb, you really need to help me out.  I need an idea for renewal."
Seb walks over to the mail on the dining table, slams his hand down and says "try this!"

Photo problem solved.

RENEWAL

At this store, they told me that if I drank alkaline water, it would renew, restore and replenish my soul. I wish it were that easy.
I should have gone to the DMV to take a picture of the people in line, waiting to renew their driver's licenses.

Remembrance

My mum gave me this little halcyon days enamel on the one year anniversary.

REMEMBRANCE

Too many names. One is too many.

RELIGION

And I found this one of the hardest themes yet.

 

Religion

This was an easy theme... there is a church on every corner in this country.  Every possible denomination.  I actually took notice of all the different ones I passed today on my one hour commute to work (Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Unitarian and I am forgetting one).  This was my favourite because I liked the sign but no idea which denomination...

Relaxation

A truly relaxing day.  We went out to the north fork and our dear friend Melissa cooked up a veritable feast to mark the start of a new school year. I know it looks like this picture is staged (even the back of the chair says "Relax") but this is exactly what I found in their back yard.  In the distance is Annabelle running through the sprinklers.  Perfect day.  Perfect weekend.  Don't really want the week to begin.

RELAXATION

Eric, spending some time, relaxing in the pool.

Relationship

This picture warms my heart.  Kara had to work all day and here she is reunited with her little baby girl Mia.  On the right is newlywed Alison (remember that great trip to St. Louis?) who will forever have a special relationship with Charlotte... after teaching her to make ice-cream today.

RELATIONSHIP

Father and son

Refreshing

Uh-oh.  Looks like we have similar pictures (a drink and peaches) except... yet again my drink is the alcoholic version and I have the peaches in the drink.  It was a perfect evening to eat dinner on the deck and enjoy a Pimm's.

REFRESHING

Pink lemonade and peach pie by the pool on a warm day.

Reflect

Some days your plans just don't work out.  We had fun plans with friends in the morning and different friends in the afternoon.  Alas a certain stomach bug didn't agree and we had to cancel everything.  Thankfully it appeared to be mild and by lunchtime Charlotte had totally rallied and was eating again.  She felt so good that we headed down to the Northport bandstand in the evening to hear "The Liverpool Shuffle" belt out some Beatles tunes.  I had hoped to get some good water reflections in the harbour.  But mostly I ended up reflecting on how pretty everything looked in the evening light.

REFLECT

I left this for the last minute today. I was completely unsure of how to take a picture of 'reflect'. I went to the beach for something different but what I wanted was covered in weeds and couldn't be seen. The light was spectacular at that time of the evening and I saw this beat up dock with the seagull just sitting there. I could see myself sitting on the end of the dock, dangling my feet in the water, trying to make sense of the senseless. Maybe that's what the seagull was doing. I hope this picture conveys the theme for today.

Red

I wish I had more time with this theme.  Not the most exciting picture but doesn't this little red tomato just POP? Seb has been popping them in his mouth with abandon since we got back.

RED

Red is a color seldom seen in my house but I found a coin purse of Carly's and thought it was also a nice nod to Gemma. (She had a flag the same she always kept in her room.)

Recreation

Painting on the deck. This was my favourite picture of the day but I wasn't entirely sure it satisfied the theme.  So I looked it up and  one of the definitions put me at ease "a pastime, diversion, exercise, or other resource affording relaxation and enjoyment."

RECREATION

The ferry on its way to Fire Island.

Reaching up

Washing hands before dinner.  It is always a race to the step stool...

REACHING UP

My geranium and the sycamore tree reaching up to the sun.

Raindrops keep falling

Not rain exactly... but Annabelle had a whole lot of fun playing in the sprinklers at our old playground in Forest Hills this afternoon.  And I had a lot of fun playing with the colour controls on the computer...

RAINDROPS KEEP FALLING

Manufactured raindrops!

Purple

A while ago Seb planted these tiny purple flowers by the front porch.  Not entirely sure the pinwheel is purple... but close enough for my liking!

PURPLE

PRIMARY COLORS

A dice game to play at the Lake on a rainy day.

Primary Colours

Fridge magnets holding up an old picture of some guy I know with his little brother...

Prickly

This is the "detangler" which works miracles through Charlotte's knotted hair.  I love the prickly shadow it casts in the late afternoon sun.

PRICKLY

I think this is called a Barberry. It resides in our front yard in the corner and no one touches it because of its painfully sharp thorns.

Precious

A medley of precious pieces handed down through our families. Included are my father in law's crushed baby rattle, my great-grandmother's ashtray and right in the middle a (very unpolished) precious little angel sitting on a swing.

PRECIOUS

Precious metal - platinum. My father-in-law gave this to my mother-in-law and she left it for Carly.

Powerful

This is the first day that I actually almost forgot to take a picture.  I am a little bleary eyed.  So I realize that I am grasping at straws here with this pathetic attempt at conveying powerful.  But this is a message to all our family and friends who visit us ... we finally went out and bought a new powerful shower head.  It's the best.

POWERFUL

Portrait

Seb!!!

PORTRAIT

Michael

POINT/POINTED

Point/Pointed

This morning we walked to Big Ben and cheered on the Olympic marathon runners.  Then we jumped on the tube with our daughters and brought them here.  A very special place.  This is the steeple to St.Brides Church where we got married eight years ago.  This trip has also been extremely special.  I have a feeling people will have to drag me kicking and screaming back onto the plane tomorrow morning.  I have been reading articles about the olympics all morning and they have literally had me crying my eyes out.  #proudtobebritish

PLEASURE

Just arrived home from the lake and my garden is overflowing with basil and tom thumb tomatoes. Being able to pull something fresh from my garden gives me pleasure.

Pleasure

We had the pleasure of seeing some of our dearest and oldest friends today.  Our families have spent insane amounts of time together throughout the years and when we see each other after a whole year it feels like barely a day has passed.  One of the younger members of the group had the pleasure of showing us his slip'n'slide today.  You wouldn't know it from the face he is pulling, but it did give him a lot of pleasure.

PLAYFUL

Jumping off the boathouse.

Playful

Happy Birthday darling Annabelle. I think she enjoyed the  playful theme today.

PLASTICS

I dropped my sunglasses under the boat dock and we had to get a mask and snorkel to find them in the 7feet of water. On my way for Croakies tomorrow.

Plastics

We had a day out in the English countryside today.  Isn't it beautiful?  You can see a combine harvester in the distance and happy cows in fields. And even some sunshine.   In the foreground are the plastic rails that surround the horse training gallops.  Sadly my pictures of the horses didn't work out.
I've been on a real photo kick while over in the UK and I actually submitted one of my pics to the newspaper.  It actually got published today!!!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful parents xoxo

PLANTS

From my rock wall on the new property.

Plants

You might have been under the impression that pubs only take their beer seriously.  Think this one is also a tad interested in plants....

PIPES

I have to tell you why I have THE WORST PICTURE ON EARTH today. This morning, on our way to a bike ride, I saw a shop that said 'pipes sold here'. So I went in and gave her the spiel to take a picture. She took me in the locked back room and had to leave the register unmanned. All the pipes in the back were water pipes! I asked for an old - fashioned tobacco pipe and this plastic one was all they had. I couldn't do anything interesting at all so this is what i got. I figured I would try something else later. But I left the camera in the truck on the bike ride, ended up along a river of a water treatment plant and was inundated with pipes but no camera or cell phone. Thought I would get it back at the house but as soon as I arrived home, Matt's friend needed to go to a walk-in clinic after breaking his toe on the boathouse. He's fine but my picture is not. Tomorrow is another day. :)

Pipes

Found these pipes in one of the exhibition rooms at the Natural History Museum.  In the background were beautiful stained glass windows but you can barely see them in the picture.