Tagged: obiterphotos

03
Jul
2009

THE REASON IS YOU

I know just how blessed I am. It’s not the time away, or the weeks off work, or the downtime reading relaxation. It’s not the wind or the water or the rocks or the little fishing villages with their red houses all in a row. It’s not the things we’ve seen or the things we’ve done. It’s not even the sunshine. Okay. It IS the sunshine, at least part of it is. But mostly it’s these: Photos of Karin, Anders & Simone by John Slaughter; Photos of Martin and John by Anders Ek Cracking Me Up: Where the wild things...

02
Jul
2009

WIND & WATER

Since I was in college, I’ve always liked canoeing. We went on several canoe trips with all our floormates from Akers Hall, and even after graduation, dispersal and my move to Chicago, we continued to organize weekend-long canoeing trips in Michigan for several years. We’ve only gone a few times since moving to Sweden…the local river is a fairly easy one and we’ve only rediscovered the canoeing bug now that the kids are old enough to paddle as well, and we also have access to the canoes that belong to the local Scout troop, which we’re members of. On Friday,...

01
Jul
2009

SOME MORE THINGS WE DID

Busy every day but in a leisurely way with time to sit in the sunshine and read books and walk along the piers of the little fishing towns. On Thursday, we drove north to Tanumshede to see the bronze age rock etchings that dot the area. Apparently there are more than 10,000 boat drawings alone, scattered around Sweden. They are colored red in order to be seen better by tourists, as in their natural state, they’re scarcely noticeable and many have eroded badly due to pollution and weather. The world heritage site at Tanum included a replica bronze age settlement...

30
Jun
2009

SOME THINGS WE DID

We crammed in a lot of activities during our week up north. Even though I could have easily turned into a slug, something about the early early sunshine got me going much faster than I would normally have liked managed. Simone was up in the early yawning every day, doing pilates on the cliffs and she and Anders took turns biking into town for fresh bread and breakfast rolls. We did most of the things on our list of things to do in the area, though we never did actually make it to Smögen. Uri the Amur Tiger at Nordens...

29
Jun
2009

COASTAL LIGHT

The light is incredible along the western coast of Sweden in the summer. It’s one of the sunniest spots in the country, logging more sunlight hours by far than the rest of us. This past week, right after midsummer, the sun never actually set, just dipping down behind the horizon around 1 a.m. and apparently scooching quickly around to the east to rise a short hour or so later. Frankly, sunset photos never do the real thing justice. We drove up from Skåne in rain, which slowed and ceased as we arrived on Ödby Island. There were puddles in every...

20
Jun
2009

LONGEST DAY

Family, friends, a midsummer pole dressed with 7 kinds of wildflowers, dancing like tail-less, ear-less frogs (kouack kouack!), toads under ferns, swan babies, 6 kinds of herring, strawberries, singstar silliness, a hotdog-begging kitty, reading on the trampoline or alternately, bouncing on it, downpours with hail, giant fluff-clouds, sunshine! a walk in the woods, hotdogs on the grill, 2 puppies to pat, schnaps songs, packing, games, laughter! Happy midsummer everyone! The kids, with John & Simone’s help, were justifiably proud of their midsummer pole! (photo: John Slaughter) Sillybutts! (photo: John Slaughter) Karin, Liz, Martin & Simone (photo: John Slaughter) The Ek’s...

24
Apr
2009

SENIOR HIGH

OMG! I bet you thought I was never going to get my diploma! Where the hell was I? Aaaah, yes, moving from Belgium to Germany! Back when we moved to Germany, there were US military bases everywhere, all over the freaking country. Berlin still had its wall, after all. There were so many other DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependents Schools) that our sports teams didn’t even have to play against any German schools, ever. My dad was stationed at Ramstein AFB, but we lived in Landstuhl which was where the military hospital and Army post were, and we went to...

18
Apr
2009

JUNIOR HIGH

The summer before my 7th grade year, we moved overseas to Belgium. I didn’t even know where Belgium was on a map beforehand. My dad was stationed at a tiny little Air Force base named Kleine Brogel (strangely, I can’t find a translation for Brogel online…any of my Dutch LJ friends able to help?). We didn’t live in base housing, instead my parents chose to rent a house on the outskirts of a little farm village called Overpelt which was a few miles away, but we spent nearly a month of the summer before we found the house living in...

16
Apr
2009

NEARLY SEPARATED AT BIRTH?

I know the picture of Melissa Then is black-and-white which wasn’t the best choice for comparison, perhaps, but it was actually the best one I could find, and the one where you can really see the resemblance. She was 9 years old when she first starred in Little House on the Prairie and I was 9 years old in the picture below. She was born the same year as I was, only 3 months before me. We had the same color hair, freckles, brown eyes, and big front teeth: Melissa Then Lizardek Then

14
Apr
2009

UPPER ELEMENTARY

Aaah, the middle school years. These were the years where my memories started to stick and become smoother, with fewer gaps in between. There is a lot that is still a blur, however. I only remember the family across the street, for example, and none of the other kids in my classes or neighborhood. I tried long hair, and though you don’t see it in these pictures, I had glasses, though I hated them and took them off at every opportunity, and at one point had to wear a patch to help correct my amblyopia. My mom would draw eyes...