As 2012 turns the corner, we’d like to take a look back at our most popular posts since we started this thing last June. I suppose when you’re compiling a list like this there is a variety of criteria you could use to measure the most popular posts – some complex algebraic gymnastics that take into account ‘likes,’ number of comments, etc. – but we’ll leave the complicated algorithms to Google and fall back on the straightforward expedient of looking at the posts with the most overall views. So, here are, ranked by views, our:

READERS’ TOP 5 POSTS OF 2012

1. How to Shoot Your Kids: 8 Ways to Get Knock-Out Family Photos

• This one was Freshly Pressed, so it’s the winner by a long shot. We got almost 13,000 views on June 29th alone. A big day for us.

2. Fingers in the Cookie Jar: So Your Kids Caught You Having Sex

• Either a lot of people have been busted by their kids, or a lot of people enjoy reading about others who have, because this one is a close second.

3. Grecia and Costa Rica’s Central Valley

• Costa Rica is a popular holiday destination, particularly for Americans, so this one has seen a lot of traffic. As one of the main purposes of  this site is to provide useful destination information to help parents plan their trips, we’re rather pleased about that.

4. Ireland’s Beara Peninsula: Wild, Windswept, and Wonderful

• Here again, it gives us a lot of satisfaction when people can put our travel tips to practical use. And if our tales and photos inspire a trip, so much the better.

5. A Day with the Dead: Taking Your Kids to the Cemetery

• Who would have thought that so many people would be interested in an article about taking your kids to graveyards? But there it is, our 5th most popular post. Nothing morbid about it, by the way – cemeteries are great places to both relax and to learn.

So there are the  5 posts that readers clicked the most. I’d like to say an enormous thank you to everybody who has taken the time to read – and sometimes comment 0n – the stuff I put out there. It really means a lot when folks say that a post was useful, or moving, or funny, or whatever. I’ve ‘met’ a lot of great people in the last 7 months, and look forward to meeting more and reading what they’ve got to say about the world around and inside them.

Soon we’ll be posting our own personal picks, the ones that tickle us the most for a variety of reasons, so stay tuned.

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