This little lady of mine – she throws herself into ideas and ran off to find her collection of “treasures” to show off – she’d been collecting them over a couple of days and hiding them in the trees beside the beach!

We loved this tree – we actually spent quite a lot of time camped out on the beach by it.. swinging on it… climbing on it and just hanging out there….

The sunsets in the Andaman Islands were truly amazing – we arrived there in the tail end of a cyclone (which made for a rather bumpy flight, a missed ferry out to this beautiful island, a night stuck in the capital city and a sea sick girlie on the ferry the following day ) but I am sure it made the sunsets more vibrant as this was on the wrong side of the island and yet we were still cast in the most amazing warm pink and purple glow…

I had to get in a little lensbaby love too…..

It truly was beach bliss….. I can’t believe it’s already 2 months since we came back…… take me back there…… Kirsty xx

We visited a Hindu temple in Chennai, and the girls loved the colours and the statues of the Gods, and the space, and the fact that there were lots of cows hanging around….

And I loved that Indy had chosen to wear this dress that she loves so much by Courtney Courtney… how fabulously does it go with the vibrancy of the temple? The painted mandalas on the floor were perfect for doing twirls in in Indy’s opinion!! I think she wore this dress nearly every day on holiday – although to be fair, she did change about 5 times every day!!! 

I keep saying more travel stories coming soon… the reality is the spinning plates of running a business and running a home and bringing up kids and doing the school run/parties/doctors visits/dancing classes etc etc means I rarely get around to editing pictures of my family, and my kids doing the things we love the most… my 2012 resolution is to stop work at a reasonable hour and to do more for us, to help preserve our family memories too, to edit pictures, just like these, of my sweetie pie, enthralled by somewhere we travelled to – so maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to see us in Cambodia, and Bangkok and on some of our other 2011 travels soon,

Kirsty xx

Yesterday, for Chinese New Years eve the girls got to dress up in their special qipao’s and perform at a CNY dinner – I had such a proud Mummy moment as they bravely stood in front of 200 strangers and sang away in their second language and received the hugest cheer

I thought in celebration of Chinese New Year it’d be fun to share some pictures from when the girls and I spent a month in Shanghai last summer…..

I was soooooo lucky to start out my 2012 on a beach in India. We love India, but visiting the Andaman Islands was amazing – they’re a set of tropical islands, closer to Thailand than India and they are just stunning, and so, so friendly and so different from the normal hustle and bustle of Indian life. I admit, I kinda forgot about this project – I was so very in the chilled out zone whilst away – but these are pieced together from our last morning hanging out at our beach hut in remote North Andaman, before changing and taking a sea plane back down to Port Blair, the capital and heading to Ross Island to visit the ruins of the old British headquarters.We’ve been back just 3 days and I’ve loved this project this month for forcing me to abandon the laundry and tidying of Christmas decorations to sit down and play with some photos and take myself back there… so enjoy a day in the life of the Andamans…

Just hanging out…..Our laundry!!!

In an autorickshaw heading to the sea plane – and I think this qualifies as a picture with me in

Driving the auto!! They really had so much fun – my girls would move tomorrow to a country soley on the basis of it having auto’s or tuk tuks!!!

Waiting for the plane – with our 1 bag (and a good job we travel light too as you can’t take the plane if you have more than 5kg luggage per person!!!) and a view of the beautiful islands as we flew over…..

Saffy sat up front and helped drive the auto from Port Blair airport to our hostel – she was so thrilled with herself (we hired the same driver to take us to the airport the next day to fly back to Delih and so Indy got her turn too!!)

Fresh coconuts….

Exploring the ruins of Ross Island…Abandoned church – the kids loved this because it reminded them of clambering through the temples in Cambodia

Boat back from the island and kulfi from the dockside seller – oh so yummy!!

Dosas for dinner – always a hit, and making sure she got the last drop of her mango lassi!!

That was a much busier day than most of our days on the islands, where we hung out at the beach, or at our hut, or went on a jungle trek or sat around eating parathas all morning, or went to the beach, or to another island… you get the picture…

Now head on over to see a different day altogether with the lovely Andrea,

Until next month, Kirsty xx

Hope you’re all getting into the festive spirit, Kirsty xx

If you’ve followed this blog you’ll have seen something of the UAE and the celebrations of National Day before here and here.

This week has been filled with parties, fly pasts, concerts, singing, dancing, competitions, fireworks and the whole city has taken on an air of celebration.

If you’re on my Facebook page you’ll have seen my girls all dressed up for their school party and getting into the fun of the celebrations.

For us it’s more than a 1 day party – this is the country where one of my children was born and she’s incredibly proud of it – and just as we celebrate Chinese New Year for Saffy who was born in China, we are thrilled to be part of the celebrations for National Day here in the UAE for Indy.

She may not be Emirati, but UAE will always be part of her identity. 

The girls indulged me a little photo shoot for 5 minutes after school while they were still dressed up in their kandora’s and with some of the gifts they’d been given by their Emirati class mates.

These are just outside our flat – we live slap bang in the middle of the most congested area of town – it’s not the prettiest part but we love it here

So, to all my fabulous friends – Happy National Day – hope you’re getting into the spirit of the celebrations (yes, we even have flags on our car!) and enjoying the long weekend… until next time, Kirsty x

And here she is – all grown up and 5 1/2…. 

You guys are such sweeties, we miss you now we’re back in Abu Dhabi, xxx

I’ve mentioned before how I love the quietness and calm that spreads across the city during Ramadan – that I love that we get to spend more time together as a family and my hubby is home earlier. It’s a quiet time for my business too with it being summer and so hot outdoors and that allows me to work on some other things. Every year I challenge myself to a Ramadan photo project (although I never actually got around to posting it last year – oops). This year was simple – after the fun of capturing my family on my iphone for my Project 10 last month – I decided to capture snaps of Ramadan on my iphone too. Sometimes it’s fun to just take photography back to its bare bones – where the things that make a great photo are not your about your settings or your camera, but about choice of subject, use of lighting and composition. So, here are some of the things I found interesting this Ramadan, via my iphone…

I have a real love of patterns and food, so pictures of dates and sweets are the kind of things that make me smile. We also went to Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque for iftar as we do every year and every year the building amazes me more. We spent time at the beach where we could hear the prayer call echoing out across the city right as the sun went down. 

I hope you all have a wonderful few days with your families. I’ll be up and running and taking bookings again soon  (with some changes in my fees due to a change in family circumstances – keep on eye on my Facebook page for more on that).

Eid Mubarak to one and all, Kirsty x

and the funny thing about this session was that Miss Alessia is quite a firecracker and didn’t sit still, at all…. or at least we thought she didn’t…

Proved us wrong huh?

I loved spending time with you guys on our trip, this last pic is totally one of my faves – it was Mum’s birthday and she looks so relaxed and happy and beautiful to be hanging out with her gorgeous babies

Your whole gallery will be with you soon… much love, Kirsty x

I miss you guys – but looking at your gorgeous faces as I edit away keeps me smiling.

lots of love, Kirsty xxx