All Children and Luggage Accounted For

The boys and I made to Australia in one piece. We had a disastrous flight to Australia two years ago that involved delayed flights, being denied boarding, a forced 24 hour delay in San Francisco, having to fly United and, finally, some lost luggage, so I would be lying if I said I wasn’t just a teeny bit nervous this time.

Now that we’re safely in Australia, and I’m not in danger of jinxing myself, I’m thrilled to share the news that this trip was perfect. Every single flight was on time, I packed enough activities and movies to keep everyone relatively happy and the boys even slept for eight hours on the longest leg. I don’t think it could have gone better if I’d planned it.

So here’s the rundown of our trip with mostly iPhone photos, with a couple of DSLR pics thrown in. Most of the time I was too lazy to pull out the DSLR

1. Got to Portland airport at 2pm and stood in line forever to check our bags while people who checked their bags online moved through at a much faster pace. This is the only gripe I have about our trip (oh, and LAX but I’ll get to that). International flyers aren’t not allowed to check bags online, so why should we be forced to stand in a much longer line, with fewer staff to assist? OK, rant over.

2. Said goodbye to Kei at the security line that practically wrapped around the entire airport (slight exaggeration). Made our way to the gate and waited about 30 minutes before we were allowed to board while my children behaved like little angels. Here’s the proof:

3. Boarded plane #1 to LAX. A quick 2.5 hour trip during which my children drew pictures, read books and continued their angelic behaviour. It was nothing short of miraculous.

4. Landed in LAX and discovered that we had to exit the terminal and catch a shuttle bus to the international terminal, check in again at the Air New Zealand counter and then go through security for the second time in less than four hours.

5. Made it through a surprisingly-short security line and browsed the pathetic selection of airport food. Decided on a Pizza and salad from Wolfgang Puck which was as good as you would imagine and then found a place to hunker down for a couple of hours. Side note: I’ve been through a lot of international airports an LAX is arguably the worst. It feels dirty and the amenities are pretty pathetic. Would have definitely preferred to fly through San Francisco but I was lured by the promise of a SkyCouch on the LAX flight (more on that in a moment).

6. Let the kids watch a couple of episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender during which time I was free to read a book (yes, even I am amazed by that last sentence).

7. Boarded our 14 hour flight to New Zealand at about 9pm (on time). The kids were tired, but excited. Samuel kept asking if we were nearly at Australia but I had to break it to him that this was only flight number 2 and most of the trip still lay before us. He seemed a little disappointed but quickly perked up when he spotted his very own TV in the back of the seat in front of him.

8. Thomas was close to passing out from exhaustion immediately after dinner so we set up the SkyCouch. What an amazing stroke of genius to provide children with somewhere to sleep. While it wasn’t without its faults (hard to get to bags stored under seats, lots of kicking and jostling for room), the kids slept for a full eight hours. EIGHT HOURS! I slept for about four in a seated position, but it was enough to keep me going.

9. Kids woke up and watched about 4 hours of television before we landed in Auckland – although Samuel watched The Lion King about 3 times so I don’t think it counts as too much TV. Only hiccup was that I left my favorite water bottle on the plane. I’m a little sad about that but, as far as hiccups go, I’ll take it.

10. Went through security one more time (overkill) where I forgot to empty the kids water bottles like a travel rookie – a move that was quickly fixed with a quick “skull” (Definition: to drink in a single draught without taking a breath). Found our favorite place to hang out in the Airport and the kids played quietly with Lego while I, again, read a book (gasp!).

11. Headed down to the gate about 15 minutes before our flight boarded. I found a strip of relatively unoccupied space and had the kids run races up and down until they called us for boarding. To all the people who gave me dirty looks while I let my kids run around – YOU ARE WELCOME. You just don’t realize how much more pleasant your trip has become.

12. Boarded our final 3.5 hour flight to Melbourne. I managed to watch the end of a movie that I started on our previous flight while the boys watched their own TV for a while. Samuel then took out the lego so I set up the sky couch to catch any dropped pieces (seriously fantastic invention).

13. Finally touched down in Melbourne and this us what happened: flew through the immigration line (we were the only flight that had landed), grabbed both bags that quickly appeared on the the luggage carousel (huge sigh of relief), breezed through customs (even got to pat the sniffer dog) and then walked out the doors to be greeted by my brother and nephew.

All in all, the perfect trip. The boys behaved wonderfully apart from the appearance of Samuel’s “dark side” on a few occasions. A little yelling and demanding due to over-tiredness but thankfully no all out tantrums. Our flight even landed about 20 minutes early.

Of course I have a lingering fear that we used up all of our good luck on the way over and that our trip home will be disastrous but I think it’s always good to maintain a little bit fear. It keeps you on your toes.

Classic New York

Yes, I’m still wading through my New York photos despite the fact that I’ll soon have a bunch more photos to post from the part of the world I’m in right now. I just keep finding images that I want to share. What can I say? It’s an illness.

The thing about photographing New York is that you often find yourself capturing familiar images like the iconic shots of Radio City Music Hall, the LOVE sculpture and the Empire State Building. And, because you’ve seen those photos so many times before, it’s easy to talk yourself into walking past without pulling out the camera. But the thing about the photos I’m about to share, even if they look a little familiar, is that I was there. That makes them more valuable to me, if not to anyone else.

And every now and again I managed to capture something completely fun and unexpected. So, here’s a small collection of classic (and not so classic) photographs that could only have been taken in New York.

Discovering St Patrick’s Cathedral, New York

Sharing more photos from New York while life keeps me too busy to blog.

I love photographing Cathedrals. There’s something beautiful to look at around every corner and, although I’m not Catholic, it’s difficult not to feel a sense of peace when surrounded by such beauty and tradition.

Wordless Wednesday: Grand Central Station, New York City

So incredibly glad I dropped by the Grand Central Terminal on my way to visit one of our New York City Offices. What an amazing building – even if part of it was overshadowed by an obnoxious Apple “store”. Wonder how much they paid for that real estate.

Grand Central is one of those buildings that remind you of how important it is to always look up.

During my quick visit, I happened upon a Transit Authority award ceremony, complete with bagpipes. I love stumbling across unexpected surprises while traveling. I managed to take quite a few sneak photos through the curtain before I was told it wasn’t allowed. Oops. I supposed if they were serious about it, they wouldn’t have let me stand there for a good 10 minutes before they asked me to stop.

I love New York.

A Stroll Through the NY Public Library

I took a lot of photos in NY (A LOT!), so expect them to appear here over the next few weeks.

I happened upon the gorgeous NY Public Library building quite by accident during my walk around midtown. While it was on my list of things to see during my visit to New York, I didn’t expect to bump into it while I walked blindly through the city on my first day. It was one of those wonderful discoveries that can creep up on you – one minute you’re navigating your way down streets lined with skyscrapers and then you turn a corner and happen upon park that covers two city blocks and, arguably, one of the most famous landmarks in the world (only partly due to Ghostbusters).

P.S. As much as I enjoyed a peaceful walk through the library, a small part of me wishes I had the good fortune to visit on this day.

Wordless Wednesday: A Walk Around Midtown

Five Very Touristy Things I Did While In New York

If all goes well, I’ll be in flight and on my way back to the West Coast when this post goes live. I have had a wonderful, busy few days in New York City and, while I don’t like to think of myself as the typical “tourist”, I did manage to squeeze in a few very touristy adventures between work and training commitments.

1. Walked Times Square
Thanks to the location of my hotel, I pretty much had to walk through Times Square any time I ventured outside. Of course I took WAY too many photos and was dying to escape the craziness after just a few minutes, but at least I managed to capture this shot of a very wet Times Square before I escaped for quieter corners of the city.

2. Visited Grand Central Station
This was high on my list of must do’s while I was in town. Conveniently, I had to walk past the station on my way down to visit one of my company’s offices so I was able to stop in and take a few photos. As a bonus, there was an award ceremony underway so my visit was accompanied by the sound of bagpipes. Pretty perfect.

3. Saw the Statue of Liberty (sort of)
Every time I talked to Thomas about my trip to New York he asked if I would see the Eiffel Tower. I think he was getting his cities mixed up so I made sure that I captured a (very distant) shot of the Statue of Liberty to help with his geography. I took this shot from the training room I spent the day in on Wednesday. You may have to squint to spot the Statue.

4. Rode the Subway
I have to admit that I was very nervous about jumping on the Subway. In fact I walked thirty blocks back from the East Village just to avoid it on Wednesday evening. I suppose I’m not as adventurous as I was when I traveled Europe on my own as a 20 year old. But on Thursday I bit the bullet, mainly because my feet really hurt from walking another 30 blocks downtown. And, you know what? It was very easy – especially with my cell phone to guide me.

5. Visited Carrie Bradshaw
I think you’ll agree that this is quite possibly the most dorky tourist adventure on the list. I just couldn’t help myself, I HAD to see where Carrie lived. In the show, she apparently lived on the Upper East Side but the actual building where they filmed is in the East Village. And before you judge, let me just mention that I was NOT the only tourist visiting this sacred space – a fact that the current owners are trying to remedy with a “keep out” sign across their stoop.

Of course I did so much more not-so-touristy-things during my visit but those photos will have to wait for another post. I have a plane to catch so I can make it home in time for a very special 4th birthday on Saturday.

Bright Lights, Big City, Lots of Rain

I’m in New York City this week for work. The last (and only) time I was here was about 14 years ago over New Years Eve. It was before I had a husband or children and before I considered myself a photographer. It was also the pre-digital era which means I have no idea where my photos from that trip may be stored – likely in one of the boxes that take up (a tiny amount of ) space in my Parent’s garage.

So, between training courses and work, I plan to capture as much of the city as possible in my few hours of free time.

Right now, though, I’m just praying that the rain gods will give me a teeny tiny break.

This is the view from our NY office a couple of hours ago.

And now…

The Road to Portland: A Photobook

I want to share a little book that I created as an Anniversary present for Kei (well, it was actually for both of us). We celebrate 13 years of marriage this week and, because I’ll be in NY and was too excited to wait any longer, I gave it to him a little early.

The photos in this book were taken during our year-long journey from Hawaii to Portland almost 10 years ago. During that crazy 12 months we spent 7 months in Honolulu and five on the road. We walked over volcanic lava, saw the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, looked out over the Grand Canyon, toured Graceland, got wet at Niagra Falls, watched the Cubs win at Wrigley Field, ran bases on the field of dreams, took in the beauty of Yellowstone, saw some giant Presidents at Mt Rushmore and so much more. It was an amazing trip and I am so glad I was finally able to pull everything together into one book.

Thankfully, we took this trip in the early days of digital photography so I was spared the chore of scanning in the photos. And I was surprised at the quality of the photos that we got from such an old point and shoot camera (Samuel’s now using it). While the images weren’t big enough for full page spreads, they printed beautifully.

This was also my first time using the Lightroom book module for Blurb and it was fantastic. While it took a little time for me to get used to customizing the layout for text, etc., once I got the hang of it the book came together very quickly. I love that there was no need to export my files to a third party program and that I could easily add additional photos without having to click back into another program.

To begin, I decided on one big wrap around photo of the Waimea Canyon in Kauai for the cover. I like the simplicity of just one photo with a little bit of text.

The first inside page includes one of my favourite pictures of the two of us in Hawaii and a brief intro to the book. What strikes me is how relaxed and happy we look. Ahhh, life before children…

I also kept it simple inside the book with mostly plain white backgrounds and just a caption with the location every now and then. I also included a few section title pages to distinguish between our time in Hawaii, the cruise around the islands and our time on the road.

The rest of the book consists of a variety of multi and single photo pages with a few double-page spreads thrown in where the photo was big enough to span two pages. I put a maximum of four photos on a page to keep it simple and ensure none of the photos were hidden.

I repeated the cover image inside the book. This is one of the few photos that were large enough to fill a double page spread. While most of the pages were plain white, I placed a few with a dark grey background every now and then to make some of the images pop and add a little interest.

I had a vision for the “Road Trip” section title page for a long time. When I showed it to one of my friends at work she said that the Google map put the entire trip in perspective. For this image, I simply created a “my places” map on Google, added location pins for every step on the journey, made it as big as possible on my computer screen and then took a screenshot. Then, in Photoshop, I “drew” lines connecting the dots. I love how this page turned out.

I had to do a few Google searches to work out exactly where we were in some of the photographs – although Kei was very proud of the fact that he made us pose for a photo at the entry to every National Park. I have to admit that it was a huge help while I was pulling the book together to have a big sign spelling out the location.

We went to the actual Field of Dreams. It’s in middle-of-nowhere-Iowa and was well worth the detour.

I organized the book chronologically, except for the last few pages. A couple of months after we arrived in Portland we had to drive to San Francisco to return the rental car. I wanted to include our trip to San Francisco in the book but I also wanted to end the book with the Welcome to Oregon sign, even though we passed it a few months before our trip to San Francisco.

I cheated a little but I think it works better for the story. I love a good ending.

This project has inspired me to get more photos off of the computer and into books. The entire family loves looking through them and there’s really no better way to look at a photo than in print.

So, I’m on a quest to update our annual photo album library and create a few little mini books documenting our trips to Australia and Japan. Although I religiously create a photobook each year for the grandparents, the last one I did for our own bookcase was back in 2009. I best get started…

Looking Back (to Austin) and Looking Forward (to a break)

Wow – my trip to Austin feels like a lifetime ago. So much has happened since then. Just the everyday life type stuff, but so, so much of it. I think I lose track of time as I get older. Days seem shorter and more full and then suddenly you open your eyes and it’s April.

April.

That means a little over two months until I jump on a plane and head for sunnier skies (weather permitting) and a good long lie down. Thanks in advance to my Mum for looking after the kids. 🙂 OK, so I don’t really think the good long lie down is going to happen, not while I’m single-parenting it for a good proportion of the trip.

Still, I am looking forward to getting rid of the schedule and spending some time just enjoying TIME. With my kids in the place where I grew up, with my family and my super-adorable nephew, with my camera…

When I take a look back at some of the photos I took during my trip to Austin, Iit reminds me of how much I am inspired by a change of scenery. Not that I don’t love the four walls I live in, just that my four walls don’t change very much. The people inside them change (way too quickly), but sometimes I need to experience them in a different setting to fully appreciate, and photograph, the changes.

Side note: This next photo is of the very best iced mocha I have ever tasted. I’m salivating just thinking about it. I may have had more than one (or two or three) during my visit.