Jul 27 2010

Cheltenham Visit

Category: Anna's Photos,Friends — ChrisM @ 1:22 am

We did not have long in Cheltenham whilst we were in Britain, and as luck would have it, just before we left race week started, meaning travelling anywhere in the area could suddenly involve hundreds of cars on roads that were designed with about 1/10 of the traffic flow in mind. We did manage to meet up with a few people though, as you can see from the photo below, taken on the 11th of March. We were at Emma’s house and her daughter was a little star, playing with Anna and keeping her entertained 🙂

Emma And Ira With Families

Emma And Ira With Families

Tags: , , , ,

Jul 26 2010

Arriving In Evesham

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 10:48 pm

The 11th of March saw us visiting my Dad over in Evesham, and later some friends in Cheltenham. Apparently Anna had already had enough of being held that day, and she seemed to want to thoroughly investigate her Grandad’s house – she was barely a couple of months old when last there, so we can’t blame her for her curiosity. Anyway, we have about four videos left of Anna in Britain I think, and about fourteen more photo posts left to publish. I’ll try and complete another four or five pic/vid posts today.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Jul 26 2010

Stairy Prisoner

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 10:40 pm

One of the few advantages with living in a flat when you have a baby is that you don’t need to worry about stair gates. I don’t know if you can get them easily here in Kazakhstan, but as soon as Anna was mobile and willing and able to start clambering up a step or two back in Britain, Mum got one. This turned into a great attraction for Anna who wanted to know how to open it. Despite a lot of vigorous shaking, pulling and drafting in Gwen for her expertise, Anna didn’t manage to make it up the stairs. So, here with the final shots taken on the 5th of March, Irina had noticed that Anna was looking quite cute up the stairs at her, so she grabbed the camera. I think it was Irina on the stairs, it might have been me?

Tags: , , , ,

Jul 26 2010

Soft Friends

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 10:22 pm

Earlier on in the day (5th of March still) from Anna’s box diving exercise, she had all her soft toys/teddies laid out around the flattened sheep that she loved to roll around on. Whether planning world domination, the intricacies of a double twist with three loops and a pike into the toy box later, or just have a general natter, I wasn’t privy to, but Anna seemed to enjoy having everything laid out in front of her, a theme which continues to this day most mornings; after breakfast she normally extracts most of the toys from her toy box in our flat, just ready for a barely awake Daddy to stumble over. Perhaps world domination starts with small steps?

Anna Has An Audience

Anna Has An Audience

Tags: ,

Jul 26 2010

Backyards, A Bench And Box Diving

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 10:04 pm

Moving onto the 5th of March, Anna had day filled with playing with her toys, getting some fresh air in the back yard by the utility room, and after another long walk all the way to the top of the back garden, a little chill out time on a bench. In the evening, her energy not yet drained, she decided to pull all the toys out of the toy box, and have a good look at the bottom of it. Unfortunately she was a little too eager and ended up flipping over and into the box. She recovered very quickly and after a little cry at the shock of finding her world temporarily upside-down, she stayed in the box for a few minutes. Finally deciding it was OK to take a quick snap shot of her, she decided to be upset again, so we put the camera down and gave her a hand out of her impromptu little castle setup.

Tags:

Jul 26 2010

Lakeside Bird Watching

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 9:28 pm

Just a little more than a fortnight since the last post with photos of Anna. Which reminds me, I need to check if AnnaMerriman.com is still picking these up automatically, and whether the plugin used will work when I upgrade her blog to WordPress 3.0. Anyway, this photo was taken in the same place and at the same time as the last video published on this blog – the 4th of March 2010. You’ll have to forgive me if I maybe skip putting 2010 for the rest of the posts today, and if you are new to this blog, and wonder why the date is included, I want Anna’s site to eventually be something we can show to her and say, look, five years ago today, this is how you looked, and what you were doing 🙂
So, over by the lake that was in the camp site Mum and John were previously at, here we have John and Anna looking at the birds. Anna seems to be momentarily distracted by something land based, but in general she does seem to like watching animals in the wild 🙂

Anna And John By A Lake With Some Birds

Anna And John By A Lake With Some Birds

Tags: , ,

Jul 09 2010

Feeding The Ducks At A Lake

Category: Anna's Videos — ChrisM @ 6:38 pm

Mum and John currently were spending a lot of time at a camping site, as it is a lot closer to Mum’s work, and the scenery was beautiful. Before they took the caravan there, they wanted to check a few sites in the locality, so John, Irina, Anna and I went to check out different locations, and at one of them there was a big lake with ducks and geese. The video was shot on the 4th of March. Since then they’ve had cows invade the area, as local chavs were breaking down fences so they could ride their mopeds and other hair dryer impersonating two-wheeled transport around the lake.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jul 08 2010

Astana Park Being Disassembled

Category: Anna's Videos,Personal,Videos — ChrisM @ 10:30 pm

These two videos were actually recorded yesterday, but rather than stream them live, I recorded them without using Qik at all. (This way I can double the resolution used). However I forgot to then upload them, hence the 24 hour delay in getting them on the blog.

Irina, Anna and I went for a walk through Astana park, to take a look at all the equipment before it was disassembled. The castle walls, yurts, stone carvings (painted expanded polystyrene) and Kazakh warrior statues were put up for Astana Day/the President’s birthday, and are being removed. There were quite a few workmen wandering around without shirts – sorry for the women (and few men) reading this post, but I don’t think we actually see any/many of these workers on video.

I hadn’t realised how windy it would sound through the phone’s microphone at the entrance to the park, sorry.

Small break in recording as I needed to use the phone for other things…

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jul 08 2010

Celt Caption Competition – Chocolate Chance!

Category: Anna's Photos,Personal — ChrisM @ 6:14 pm

I just wanted to write something quickly letting people know about a post over at Celt Photographic (JohnK’s site). It has the picture below this text, and a request to provide a good caption for it. See here.

Chris And Anna Relaxing At Home

So far we have

“…and the world’s a better place when you’re upside down…sweet about me” ,

“Australian Baby rearing therapy is questioned” ,

and the current favourite, “Despite vigorous shaking the jelly bean dispenser appeared to be empty”!

I’ve added “Father very carefully & securely holds his daughter upside down, as she really enjoys seeing the world from that perspective, and at no point was any shaking involved whatsoever” more as an explanation for concerned readers (one hand holding Anna by the shoulders), rather than a specific entry to the competition.

Ts&Cs
The bar of chocolate needs to be picked up in Wales by the winner.
The judge’s decision is final.
If I get around to upgrading CeltPhotographic to WordPress 3.0 and the site goes down, you may need to resubmit your caption.
No idea when the closing date is 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Jul 06 2010

Dozing Or Discovering?

Category: Anna's Photos — ChrisM @ 1:13 am
Sleeping Or Seeking? You Decide...

Sleeping Or Seeking? You Decide...

Before I carry on with the videos from our Fourth of July (American Independence Day) meal with Walton and Assel, here we have a picture from just over four months ago – March the 2nd was when the photo was taken. I can’t quite tell whether Anna fell asleep during her meal, after a hard morning’s work, or simply dropped her cheese and was trying to relocate it. Hopefully Irina can come along and clarify things? Anyway, I noticed I had one Anna photo post, and one Anna video left in my drafts area for some reason. I’ll try and crack on with the rest of the UK based ones soon. We haven’t been taking as many here in Astana, so it shouldn’t take as long to catch up with them.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Previous Page — Next Page »