-
- Crepe cookin’ with Marc
-
- Salsa decor deliciousness.
-
- Food, wine, and flying insanity for 80 bucks. Hell yes.
-
- Actual real coffee
-
- Instruction in the ways of the Aussi Tim-Tam slam.
-
- Marc calls this fondant chocolat, with a salted caramel heart. I call it a foodgasm.
-
- Another dose of pure bliss – fantastic foreign food with dear new friends.
-
- When fine wine is gifted to a man who doesn’t drink, the Frenchies can finally satisfy their sophisticated taste buds.
-
- A audible postcard from home – the UofM Chamber Choir.
-
- Brisbane’s Kangaroo Cliffs, the best (and cheapest!) downtown feature of any city in the world.
-
- Cliff climbing in the middle of a city?! Brisbane is all sorts of special.
-
- There be magic in this town.
-
- Emily Avers in the flesh. Mind blown.
-
- Alan, fine wine connoisseur, finally relents and breaks into the Goon. It gets the job done.
-
- Yes, them’s real dead ducks. This is what everybody is getting for Xmas.
-
- Strap on that pack and hoof it! Miles to go before we sleep. Illegally.
-
- Nothing motivates a hike better than hard French liquor.
-
- Our noble stead, the irrepressible Jackaroo, on an island of sand that nearly defeated him.
-
- Mealtime gets some company, and some exotic French cuisine. Toast with jam and cheese, anyone?
-
- World Cup action in a Sydney pub. This crowd is for the England (yay, motherland!) vs. Argentina match. You could count the people attending the USA game within both hands.
-
- The hubby and I share one last $.30 ice cream before I stuff his ass onto a plane headed home.
-
- You cannot afford anything in this mall.
-
- The world’s most expensive building, a banana split.
-
- The SuperTree-studded front lawn of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel monstrosity.
-
- View from the bananna split.
-
- You cannot afford anything in this mall.
-
- The royal Louis Vuitton tour ventures onto the store’s deck.
-
- A gym in every park.
-
- A subway station. No dirt, no crush of bodies. And check out the markings on the floor – the trains and people both adhere to them.
-
- The abandoned Chinese cemetery of Bukit Brown, one of the few unmanicured corners of the city but soon to receive a new highway.
-
- A staked number means this grave will soon be a highway. Come claim your body.
-
- Cloud Forest conservatory, featuring plants which only grow in mountain mists.
-
- The SuperTrees in action.
-
- Not a speck of dirt nor a crushing crowd to be suffered, their subway stations are a true inspiration.
-
- Cheap can still be had, you just have to go looking for it.
-
- Little India’s splash of color melts your eyeballs after three days of more sophisticated hues.
-
- “Though shall not riot, even if they call you bad names” sing the chorus of Hindu showgirls.
-
- Our own slice of Little India – Pictionary with Boy, Girl, and Entourage.
-
- If you can’t quite make out the sticker shock of this fruit, allow me to assist: $10.65 for a handful of blueberries $12.95 for a couple servings of strawberries $24.95 for fewer cherries than you need to make a pie We ate no fruit in Singapore.
-
- Granted, the Singapore dollar is a bit weaker than ours, but it’s still $9 a quart. Ouch.
-
- Big Brother says hello.
-
- Happy Xmas from the land of Conspicuous Consumption!
-
- Care for a gondola to ferry you between Gucci and Prada?
-
- In an airport.
-
- Yes, this is inside of an airport.
-
- The Singapore airport is filled with unicorn glitter and rainbow hugs.
-
- My logic tells me “wang-wang” is cutting in line, but my childish side imagines otherwise.
-
- The House-supplied knives.
-
- Dammit Doll goes to Dover in style. The sole purpose of this fellow is to absorb abuse and pain. He will end up dismembered, burned, and legless by the end of the summer.
-
- Because nothing is absurd anymore. With Vanessa’s band of random: Seth, Matilda, and Hannah (yep, Seth and Tyler caught those fish in the river).
-
- One truckload of wood lasts about 2 hours in this household.
-
- When your heart hurts from sad, fill it with booze and laughter.
-
- Our Euchre buddies take advantage of new fireworks laws to cause general mayhem.
-
- The carnage of a firework gone in the wrong direction: into Steve’s garage.
-
- Our temporary new digs, my parents’ pristine 1975 pop-up, complete with harvest gold upholstery.
-
- Attempting to make the summer carefree for a kid who’s been thru the wringer.
-
- The first and shorter of two incredibly long receipts. $5000 worth of bathroom merchandise procured over two insanity-filled days, with Jamie’s mom, the undaunted Susie Brokaw.
-
- Finally with an appetite returned, Sister perches on the judgment chair while her minions bring forth décor options.
-
- A small army of concerned relatives (Jamie’s parents, Yerpa, and us) inspect the girth of a proposed shower enclosure.
-
- Grandpa contributes a flower to the grave of his Sweetheart. She suffered from both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, so this day is a bit of a sad relief for him, who drove an hour and a half every day for many years to share lunch with her.
-
- My Grandma Duncan’s small patch of earth. It was a pleasantly practical burial, without the fake veneer of AstroTurf and masked pneumatic lifts.
-
- Niece Chloe and entourage receive lessons in goat milking. Last year Aunt Yvonne dared them each $5 to have the milk squirted directly into their mouths. She was out $20 that day.
-
- Oh the horror, the terror, the ridiculousness of the haunted ride at the Monroe County Fair, with the veritable Uncle Joe, who supposedly wrote a play inspired by this very night.
-
- Buster (Jamie’s totally butch Chihuahua who loves rides more than literally anything else) reclaims his place in the sky in Jamie’s (Dad’s) plane.
-
- Why use matches when you have a garage of airplane-building tools: Jamie’s dad, the formidable Terry Brokaw.
-
- Sending some warmth Jamie’s direction.
-
- Kurt re-lives his favorite childhood pastime and learns some new tricks for our future homestead
-
- The owner and host of the most wonderful cabin in Northern Michigan, Glen, proudly displaying the topics in which he is thoroughly knowledgeable.
-
- The fashionable and always marvelous Karenanna, who is our link to the magical cabin in the woods.
-
- Sister’s new custom bathroom, including the $2000 shower enclosure from hell.
-
- Sister’s fancy new appliances shipped all the way from Europe, cuz they’re the only models slender enough to fit through the door.
-
- Niece Chloe (aided by Miranda, April, and Richard) leaves an artistic mark on her new bathroom. We will never tell the kids how damn hard it made it to see our own tile-laying marks.
-
- What custom art looks like before it gets pretty.
-
- The first stage of being “almost done” with the new bathroom.
-
- You must sleep where you can . . . Brandon proves his youthful resilience and Buster appreciates the warm opportunity.
-
- Shawna gets a new Gap look, thanks to the less-than-stellar clothing options at the Monroe Mall.
-
- Brothers from another mother. Bill and Kurt show off their matching New Zealand wool vests and enjoy a final night together before our departure.
-
- One second later he was nibbling on the camera tether.
-
- Green Sea Turtle scoping out the neighborhood.
-
- Green Sea Turtle stretches for a bite.
-
- Reef in Honaunau at the beloved Two Step. Just two rock steps down and you get THIS.
-
- Do not touch that. Or I’ll have to haul your ass off the reef on a noodle. Long story.
-
- White Tipped reef sharks.
-
- Just a mild example of diversity.
-
- The “after” Anchorage bathroom.
-
- The “after” Anchorage bathroom. And a round of huzzahs for Knut for building a fabulous custom vanity.
-
- The “before” Anchorage bathroom. Yes, that is carpet.
-
- Damn that is bright.
-
- Midnight Aurora over Talkeetna
-
- The beginning of the show.
-
- Dusk in Talkeetna, Aurora to follow.
-
- Just skiing along . . . oh hey, Denali.
-
- Skiing in Talkeetna
-
- This young bull walked right over to us looking for a bush to snack on.
-
- Kurt tries his hand at mushing.
-
- Running the team of GB Jones on the Iditarod trail.
-
- Definitely not a pet.
-
- Ugly is a pet, not a sled dog.
-
- A team lining up for the Iditarod Restart.
-
- Bonfire with new Willow friends the eve before the Iditarod races by.
-
- Treating Jodi Bailey’s athlete dogs like pets.
-
- The gear and food for a single musher, about to be weighed and sorted for checkpoints.
-
- Janine’s clothing
-
- All gear
-
- Kurt’s Clothing
-
- Awaiting flight in New Jersey.
-
- Blizzard Nemo. Memory is a slippery thing, but didn’t winters ALWAYS used to look like this?
-
- Yummy food and Gypsy Jazz in Jersey.
-
- The new WTC towers.
-
- Bed #1: Philly. John Jarboe tells us we were the first to sleep on it. So guarantee no bed bugs!
-
- Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly.
-
- The Capitol, still recovering from the inauguration.
-
- Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly.
-
- Eastern State Penitentiary in Philly.
-
- Toledo train station departure.