Oxford

I loved this sign outside a church






















Colleges through iron bars

















At the top of St. Mary's tower

















Inside St. Mary's

Sunday at Gilgal

After church (and goodbyes to many friends) at Gilgal Baptist Church, Elise and I had Sunday lunch with Jane and Del, good friends and hosts. =)

Seafront

The day after the wedding, I slept so late that there were only about 2 hours of daylight left when I got up. Mmmm, sleeeeeep. Elise and I spent what little daylight there was wandering in the rain on the Porthcawl seafront and then taking refuge in Pietro's for some tea.

Jude's Wedding!!!

Me and my Welsh little sister


Nigel giving his sweet speech about Jude and toasting the couple at the afternoon reception


Jude removing that uncomfortable wedding footwear

Wedding prep

Setting up the hall for the reception: that's Jo's hand messing with the confetti.

Merry Christmas

Emily wonders what might be inside...

Laguna

Reunion with the Ah's! All of us:

















Melinda, Hannah, Corina






















A very different beach than the one I was walking on Wednesday:

Arturo

Julie, me, Arturo.

Crissy Field, SF

The Fourth Annual Barbara's Fish Trap Dangerous Crab Adventure

Stolen directly from John's Facebook:


And, yet again, no one ordered crab.

Ah, Palo Alto.

Old Haunts

Driving North

Through the Grapevine: snow in the shadows on the hills.

But where do they get the new ones?

Carissa said I need to put up more pictures. The sad truth is that I haven't taken any since Thanksgiving weekend. So. Here's a look at one of my favorite signs in Pretoria North:

Blonde

I haven't been taking many pictures in the past few weeks. But I came across this one of me when I was 2 1/2 and thought I'd share. See, I used to be a blonde...

Thankful

Just two of the many people I'm thankful for this Thanksgiving...



My nephew Jesse and his aunt Dianna. (My sister-in-law, who's expecting her first baby in June. Something else I'm thankful for.)

Roommate reunion

Yoori was my roommate in Whittier for several years before I moved to the Bay area. We got together to catch up over Thai food last night, only to find that our favorite Thai place is closed on Tuesdays. Bummer.


We had fun with PhotoBooth, though.

My baby nephew

This is Jesse, hanging out at the ice rink for his oldest sister's birthday party.

Reunion

Coffee in Costa Mesa with friends from South Africa. (Not quite as cool as eating Chinese food in Swaziland on the way to Mozambique from South Africa. But we never did get to do that.)

Let me get your cell phone number...


Melanie, me, Melanie, Katie

Reading

I've been experiencing that small anxiety that other avid readers may relate to--the fear of running out of reading material. The bulk of my library is in boxes in my parents' garage. I brought a (very) small handful of books back with me from South Africa, specifically these two, which I am currently reading.



The rest of my books from South Africa are somewhere between here and there, and will ostensibly arrive in mid-December. If the South African and United States postal services do what they are supposed to do, anyway. In the meantime...I need books. Well, today I managed to forage in the garage for the box of books I'd thought I might take to South Africa but didn't. I knew those were more easily accessible. And now my reader's mind is more at ease, with this modest pile to choose from: