Lake Tahoe | Anotherdayinparadise2's Blog

There are so many different ideas of what makes for happiness.

To quote George Burns, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

Audrey Hepburn once said, “The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.”

I have both of these: The close-knit family which is not on my doorstep, but when we do get together, we have the best fun, and make the greatest memories. I also have a most enjoyable life, which enables me to be happy almost all of the time. (Nobody’s perfect, are they?)

I see that quite a few bloggers have posted family pics, so thought I would also do some ‘happy snaps’. Hubby and I are still happy after more than 40 years together.

We have a great son and a lovely daughter, who although they live on opposite sides of the world, have so much fun when they get together.

I love this happy photo of our son and daughter-in-law, trampolining on their wedding day at Lake Tahoe.

What a happy little grandson we have. This was taken at a pumpkin farm, last year.

My middle granddaughter was happy to make her own pizza.

Travelling makes me happy too. This was taken in Bali, a couple of years ago.

This will be me, waiting for the taxi to the airport, in a couple of days time.

Then we’ll be off to see my smiley mom-in-law in England. This was taken 9 years ago on her 90th birthday. She made the Pavlova herself, and we were all very happy to help her eat it.

I would have loved to do one of those fancy galleries with my pics, but as you can see, I’m blonde, so can’t work it out. 🙂

To see more contributions to the WordPress happy challenge, just click here.

Marianne at ‘East of Malaga’ blog, has a monthly photo challenge. September’s theme is ‘Repetition’. She says, “In everyday life, repetition can often seem tedious. However, with creative use in photographs, repetition can give an image a real impact. Evidence of repetition can be found all around us, not only in nature, but more often in man-made objects too.”

I have a few pics to share with you which say to me, “repetition.”

The first one is taken in downtown Lima, Peru, at the San Fransisco church. This 17th century Baroque church, originally had a normal graveyard for its members, but when space became a problem, the skulls and bones were removed from the graves and thrown into a deep pit. This pit, over time, became the last resting place for most of Lima’s dead, and today the remains of some 25,000 to 70,000 people are stored at the catacombs. Until 1808, the bones were just heaped up in there, but in 1943, when the place was opened up for archeological excavation, it was decided that the Catacombs would have more appeal if the human bones were arranged artistically. They placed the skulls together in a center pile, with same length arm bones radiating outward, and matching leg bones extending beyond the arms; a rather grisly sight indeed.

On a less macabre note, here is the interior of the Mezquita Catedral (Mosque Cathedral) of Córdoba. This beautiful building has a very interesting and varied history. The vast central hall has 856 columns, made of jasper, onyx, marble and granite, and is absolutely breathtaking to behold.

The terraced rice paddies of Bali, also speak to me of repetition. As well as the repetitive lines and tiers of these paddies, can you just imagine how tedious the work must be? After the fields have been plowed and raked, the messy and back-breaking work of replanting can begin. This is often done by whole family units; men, women and children. All day long, they trudge barefoot through the rice paddies, constantly bending over. I read that on average, it takes fifteen people, four days to plant out an area of 1 hectare.

On a brighter and more relaxing note, here are dozens of deck chairs on the beach in Phuket, just waiting for people to finish breakfast, and come down to relax in them, whilst watching the waves.

More chairs here, but this time at a family friend’s house, overlooking Lake Tahoe. They were being set out for our son’s wedding a few years ago. There am I on the balcony, and my son is down below looking up at me. What a lovely occasion it was. 🙂