An Argument for Prompt Posting

Well, here it is, the promised post including bigger pictures. As I'm typing this, I'm thinking the pictures are going to be looking crappy, but I won't know until I publish. There may still be some kinks to work out with resizing my photos and figuring out the best pixels to inches ratio. Now, my argument for prompt posting. Editing and posting this many pictures SUCKS! This, in turn, always causes me to put off posting even longer, leading to a bigger and bigger backlog. And don't even get me started on how there is always something new coming up on the schedule to blog about. That's what finally kicked me in the butt this time. We're spending Thanksgiving weekend in Scotland, so I wanted to get these up before I add more to my load. So, just a quick recap.

Over Columbus Day weekend we took a trip down south. We stopped in Rochester first. We wandered the high street.
Now, I know I purposefully take a lot of my pictures on an angle, but I held my camera as straight as I could for this one to show just how slanty this building is. CRAZY!
We wandered around the castle grounds and took a peek inside.
Then it was on to Canterbury. Yes, that Canterbury.
Our main objective was the cathedral, but we wandered the shopping area as well.
Our next stop was to see these white cliffs, but we weren't in Dover. These particular cliffs are called the Seven Sisters.
We had to take time to throw rocks in the water. This always ensures smiles from the boys. I mean, the trip would have been the "worst, boringest trip ever" if we didn't stop to throw rocks.



Then we had to go up on top of the cliffs, where there were no guard rails between my boys and the sheer drop off. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck the entire time we were up there.
It was all I could do to get this picture of Brandon by himself, see, because he's not holding the boys' hands and neither am I. They had to sit twenty yards back from the edge and NOT MOVE just long enough for me to take a couple pictures.
Next we stopped in Arundel. We wanted to tour the castle, but we got there too late.

The last stop of the trip was Portsmouth. We spent our entire last day here visiting the historic dockyard. We went on board the Warrior.

Five points if you can read what the signal flags say.

And we toured the HMS Victory.
We really enjoyed getting on the old boats and seeing the exhibits in the museums. This is a good stop for anyone visiting England who likes all things nautical.
So, the next big thing was Halloween. With it being on Sunday, we weren't quite sure what we were going to do, but the two bases decided to split up the weekend and have two nights of trick-or-treating. We headed over to Lakenheath base on Saturday night to load up on candy. There were TONS of people there. I've never experienced anything like it. Fortunately Jake and Kyle picked some really unusual and original costumes. Sarcasm. There must have been about 100 each of Darth Vader and Harry Potter. Once it got dark, I was ready to be done, and so were they.

And speaking of Harry Potter, some of you may have heard that the latest installment in the HP films premiered recently. Well, it just so happens that I was able to be in London for the event. Okay, I made certain that I would be in London expressly for the purpose of witnessing the premiere. A few hours of waiting, sometimes in the rain, and plenty of screaming later (not by us, of course, but by the rabid HP fans), my friend and I had the pleasure of seeing all the stars arrive. We had several tall people in front of us as all the stars walked in to the theater, which did obstruct the view. Fortunately, all those tall people gave up once everyone was inside. We moved right on up to the edge of the red carpet, and only a few minutes later, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint walked back out.
Note to self: DON'T play with your camera settings at a movie premiere. If you look closely, that is Dan in the circle. That's what happens when you try to take a picture of a moving person at night with no flash.
I got my flash turned on in time to get a decent picture of Rupert. No picture of Emma, though.
And my last bit of excitement was being introduced to the potteries of Stoke-on-Trent. Every woman who comes to England knows about Stoke, but I had not yet been. It just so happened that there were two trips to Stoke planned over Veteran's Day weekend. I went both times. I could not get enough. I LOVE dishes. I always have. But the one pottery that made me break out the camera was Burleigh. I don't know about you, but just looking at these pictures makes me happy. So, you can imagine how downright giddy I feel when I look at my stack of dishes that I brought home from Burleigh.


"Yes, I'll just take the entire display, please."
"And that one, too."




So there you have it. If the pictures are a little crappy, I apologize. I'll try to work out the kinks on the Scotland pictures, which I vow to post within a week of returning home. I'm guessing I need more pixels per inch?

NOTE: So I looked and yes, I see that the pictures look like crap. I'll work on it, but not on these.