The Jurassic Coast...

After a long bus journey, the Year 12 Geography classes arrived in Dorset, England, a very scenic area known as the Jurassic Coast.

Ashlynn felt very spoiled to spend four nights at a five-star golf resort. The house she shared with five other girls was bigger than our home. 

They spent one day recording data on dune succession. 

Ashlynn and her partner Stas recorded data on vegetation alongside the dunes. 

Ashlynn enjoyed meeting Rebecca and some other new IB students that she normally doesn’t encounter at school.

For the other two work days, they traveled to nearby villages to collect data on tourism and coastal defenses.

The quality is poor, but here’s a photo of the whole group. It was Ashlynn’s most relaxing school trip since the teachers were really “chill.”

Freshers Tournaments...

Veronica was very excited about getting back into playing Ultimate Frisbee once she got back to UEA.

First up were two tournaments for freshers. Although Veronica is no longer a freshmen, she was still allowed to play. They didn’t do so great in the Skunks Mixed Tournament in Southampton...

...but kicked butt at a women’s tournament in Nottingham...

Our sleeping beauty

...where they walked away with the first place trophy. Check out Veronica’s video here.

Honestly, I never expected to share naked photos of my daughter, but I just can’t resist. Here’s this year’s Aye-Aye entry for UEA’s naked charity sports calendar. Can’t tell from the photo, but it was raining and only 45°F (7°C).

My First Amsterdam 8K...

It felt like another major milestone to run my first race after breaking my head just four months earlier. In fact, it was my first race since moving to Holland. Before the race it was fun to dress up for a superhero photo at the Amsterdam Marathon Expo.

I am still slow as hell, but I was determined not to walk during this 8K (5 miles) race and other than stopping for a water, I never walked. Jimmy and Ashlynn were much faster than me, but they surprised me by sweet talking their way back onto the course so they could run with me for the final portion into Amsterdam Stadium. 

They were very surprised when I sprinted ahead of them for the final leg to the finish line. After watching Jimmy and Ashlynn come around that final corner in year’s past, it was really special to finally be completing a race there myself. Afterwards, we met up with Sally, John and Andrew, who came in an incredible 13th out of 4,647 runners, to watch the first marathon runners cross the finish line. Afterwards, Sally took these photos of the five of us racers.

Honestly, I was really hoping that I could finish in under an hour, so you can imagine that I was really pleased with my time. Ashlynn and Jimmy finished in 37:21; not Ashlynn’s best result on this course, but great considering she hadn’t trained at all. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed sitting outside for lunch. That evening, Jimmy and I did even more running at the FILTH Hash in Sassenheim.

Our Girl with a Pearl Earring...

In mid-October, I was thrilled to get an invitation for a special event at the Mauritshuis from my friend Abbie who works there as a painting restorer. In addition to working on a group painting together, we got to a dress up for a photo. Probably isn’t a big surprise that we chose for Ashlynn to be the Girl with a Pearl Earring from Vermeer’s painting...

...and I was a random lady.

Here’s the finished work of art.

Art in Zwolle...

Our walking tour started in the Stedelijk (Urban) Museum Zwolle before walking around the city. Once our tour was over, I headed back there to see it in more detail. I especially liked the Drostenhuis, a charming house built in 1551.

While originally built in the 16th century, most of the furnishings in the kitchen were from the 18th century.

I loved this piece in the temporary art exhibit.

Wasn’t as fond of this one, but couldn’t help photographing it.

Afterwards I visited the Musem of Fundatie (Foundation) housed in the original Palace of Justice built in 1841. The giant cloud, which looks more like an egg to me, was added in 2013. The main exhibition featured one portrait per year from 1916 to 2016, which was very entertaining.

Touring Zwolle...

Later that week I went with the AWC for a walking tour of Zwolle. In front of the grote kerk (great church) was this cool statue of St. Michael, the patron saint of Zwolle, made of 350 layers of glass.

Here’s St. Michael’s Church, where we saw an interesting art installation...

 ...featuring dozens of pairs of socks hanging on the wall...

 ...and rolled up in a basket sitting on a sea of black socks.

 We visited the old candy store for a sample of the local specialties...

 ...and the old city hall with this cool grandfather clock inlaid into one of the walls.

 The Sassenpoort is a city gate built in the 15th century.

 Clearly the rainbow flag wasn’t part of the original design.

Speaking of design, I loved how this old church was converted into a really cool bookstore.

A Knight Among Us...

When Johanna asked if I could photograph a two-day symposium on fighting human trafficking, I wasn’t thrilled because I wasn’t really comfortable with conference photography. My attitude improved vastly when I was asked to stick around for a special ceremony just after the symposium when the mayor of The Hague would arrive to award Georgia with a Knighthood. This special ceremony had been arranged because Georgia’s husband was deteriorating so rapidly that it was unlikely that he would live long enough to witness the usual group knighting ceremony that the King conducts in the spring, which turned out to be true as he has since passed away. I felt truly honored to photograph Georgia’s special ceremony.