Today 9.1.11

"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather
And autumn’s best of cheer."
- Helen Hunt Jackson, September

May, Germany

Hot chillies for sale at vegetable stalls in Venice.

Caroline, England

Girl Power!

Salma, Canada

I tried a new recipe for Ramadan (iftar).

Becky, Philadelphia

I had the honor of shooting a wedding for a couple that had been together for 20 years on Sunday. This is the bride and her Daddy walking down the aisle...otherwise known as the porch ramp. They had an outdoor wedding and they rocked it!

Buckeroomama, Hong Kong

Zoë LOVES shrimps. She insists on helping to shell the fresh shrimps we bought from the market... and she does it quite well, too!

Maddy, New Jersey/NYC

Walking through one of the Greek temples at the Acropolis.

Lola, Utah

View of the party guests from the balcony. We had 37 party guests in all. Yikes! {Yes, I am certifiable.}

Tinajo, Sweden

September has arrived!

Today 8.31.11

Lola, Utah

Tinajo, Sweden

In the middle of creating, building - and cooperating. Lego rules!

Salma, Canada

Becky, Philadelphia

DePaul House in Philadelphia is a shelter for men. These men work very hard to overcome their difficult circumstances. I believe the next chapter in the book of their lives is going to be beautiful.

Caroline, England

Time for some SPEED!

Buckeroomama, Hong Kong

Night time view from our bedroom windown one full moon night.

Maddy, New Jersey/NYC

The view of Athens from the top of the Acropolis

Tuesdays Around the World

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” - Albert Einstein

Caroline, England

"Our Village had a fun-day to celebrate the opening of our new playground :)"

May, Germany

"Fresh sea food, something that we miss living in Germany. (Pic taken during our vacation in Italy)."

Salma, Canada

Becky, Philadelphia

"This couple has owns the stable where we go riding (Haycock Stables in Perkasie.) They have been married for 50 years. Abe and Joanne are very beautiful people."

Maddy, New Jersey/ NYC

"My bike: which has been collecting dust since the beginning of summer. It's too hot to ride, so I just take pretty pictures of it instead."

Lola, Utah

"We made four different seasing options for the kids to put on their individual bags of air-popped popcorn. Ranch seasoning, regular salt, lime salt, and cheddar cheese powder. We also made a s'mores mix with Golden Grahams, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. The kids loved sampling and combining all of the different flavors."

Buckeroomama, Hong Kong

"Josh showing off the "giant" raspberry that he picked."

Tinajo, Sweden

"Fudge heaven at the food fair - had to taste my way through of course..."

Please join us “Today” – wherever you are in the world – and link up with Communal Global!

Back by Popular Demand....

You talked, we listened! We're going to start including captions once again on our photos. It was another fun way to get a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of our contributors and we sorely missed it. And from the feedback we received from our readers, it sounds like you did too! It's going to take a few posts to get all our contributors up to speed, but we hope to be back in full swing by September. Thanks for following along with us everyday and joining in our Around The World Tuesdays link-up. Even though the summer has been a little hectic for the CG Girls, we are committed to this project and to bringing you the snippets of our lives and stories we've all come to enjoy: food, friends, local architecture, things we like to do, our children and families, places we like to visit, etc... We'll strive to make this a fun and inspiring place to visit each morning and we hope you'll continue to spread the word to your family, friends and fellow bloggers about our special little global project.

Thanks a million!

The CG Girls

P.S. Did you know Communal Global is on Twitter? We almost forgot too! But we will start using this great social media tool to connect more frequently with all of you. Follow us for all the latest CG news, posts and special highlights from our global community. If you would like to spread the word on a special project, link-up, event or anything else going on in your neck of the woods, please let us know and we'll be happy to forward the information to all our followers.

Maddy, New Jersey/ NYC

"I took this photos a week before Hurricane Irene. This reservoir is most likely completely flooded right now."

Lola, Utah

"Kortland turned 8 on the 22nd of August and we threw an "Outdoor Movie Party" for him. This week, I'd like to share some of the little projects we did for the party. We made popcorn-themed cupcakes in place of the usual birthday cake. We made little popcorn-looking topping by snipping up mini-marshmallows and then spritzing them with a mixture of yellow food coloring and water. They were a lot of work, but the kids loved them!"

Sonya, The Netherlands

Buckeroomama, Hong Kong

Tinajo, Sweden

Becky, Philadelphia

"Today is Kaishon's first day to go back to school. I can hardly believe Summer is over!"

Caroline, England

Salma, Canada

Today 8.26.2011

 

It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either. ~Dr. Wayne Dyer

LOLA, UTAH     BUCKEROOMAMA, HONG KONG

Bus stops in front of a small community shopping center.

Chinese calligraphy on a t-shirt.

 

MAY, GERMANY

 

RIKAKO, JAPAN

 

BECKY, PHILADELPHIA

 

TINAJO, SWEDEN The last ones for this summer. Sigh.

Usually I don´t take long lunch breaks, but when I have the time and the weather is right, I love to sit on this bench and watch all the people run by. A little hideaway in the middle of the city.

 

CAROLINE, ENGLAND

 

We don't laugh because we're happy -- we're happy because we laugh. ~William James

May your weekend be filled with lots of smiles and laughter, everyone!

Love Is…

 

Some thoughts on love, according to kids…  Some of these have been floating around for a while now, but they never fail to bring a smile no matter how many times one reads them:

I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.

BECKY, PHILADELPHIA

 

When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.

MAY, GERMANY  

Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.

  LOLA, UTAH  

Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.

  RIKAKO, JAPAN  

My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.

  CAROLINE, ENGLAND Comin' at ya!  

If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you don't like to play with.

  MADDY, NEW JERSEY/NYC

 

During my piano recital, I was on a stage and scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.

  BUCKEROOMAMA, HONG KONG  

Love is when mommy sees daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.

  TINAJO, SWEDEN My youngest has just entered the school world. Even though he was excited and happy after the first days, he was a little bummed that the teacher hadn´t given them homework yet. The solution; he gave himself homework - and spent some serious time working with it in his room.  

When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.

  SONYA, THE NETHERLANDS  

You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget, and it's good for them to get reminded.

So go, go and tell somebody you love them, but *psst*… only if you really mean it!