Thru my lens: The “ugly” light

Ok, maybe not completely ugly, but let’s call it the “less fortunate”, the un-”available” light is what you get when you are trying to balance a full-time job and a baby, but you desperately want to take pictures. You rush back home in the evening with the hope to catch a glimpse of warm daylight, frantically grab your camera, plop your “subject” aka baby/husband/boyfriend in front of a window, focus-frame-click and realize you are a minute too late.

In desperation you pull out your flash, an umbrella and step into the uncharted territory. It’s not the soft warm light you read about on the wedding blogs – it’s been called the “poor” second cousin at the family reunion. It’s like a homeless kitten on your porch with that begging look on it’s face – you let it in, give it a bath and in no time you both are cuddling on the couch.

Like with the homeless kitty the flash lighting might not be your first choice, but embrace this “ugly duckling” and like in the fairy tale it will turn into a beautiful swan!

Thru my lens: Pretty things

I never considered myself a very “girly” girl. I don’t own a lot of dresses, I wear make up only because otherwise people ask me if I just got back from the gym, I despise clothes shopping lately because things look way different once I try them on at home. But I still love beautiful things – buying pretty postcards, looking at design blogs, and taking pictures of beautiful flowers.

My friend Denise makes wedding flower arrangements and I photographed her work this weekend for her portfolio. Denise put a lot of time and care into these pieces and worked with the bride to incorporate the wedding colors in.

Flower girl boquet Table arragements Head table arragement White one Pink one Cake flowers

These are live arrangements so they will last far beyond the big day – oh how I wish I was a guest at this wedding and got one of the arrangements as a wedding favor to take home.

I’d rather be in: Guatemala

Recently a coworker of mine came back from Guatemala and it reminded me how much I enjoyed our visit there in December of 2004. I get easily excited about any place I visit; many of my friends can testify that after an international trip I start “preparing” to move to that country, investigating immigration laws and how to get my pets over there. It’s not that I don’t like where I live right now, I just love different cultures, new places and making new friends.

I have to remind myself all the time that I have a family and other people depend on me and my decisions. So I guess I have settled for going on vacations to wonderful places instead of moving every few years.

Anyhow, back to Guatemala. There a number of good reasons why Guatemala and Honduras are wonderful places to live (as well as other countries in Central America). To name a few: beautiful man made buildings and the wonders of the nature, breathtaking sunsets, welcoming people, colorful buses and fresh fruit stands. I loved every minute of our trip and I am already planning a trip back in next few years.

At Tikal Temple at Tikal Post office Antigua main square Antigua ruins Antigua ruins Antigua ruins Antigua church Antigua ruins Antigua ruins Antigua ruins The volcano Somebody's house Chris & friends Awesome colors Traditional headband Honduras crossing The Coast Beautiful sunset Public transport Fruit stand Public transport Parrots in Honduras At the zoo At the zoo

Babydventures: Passport Pictures Part II

Like any decent Jackie Chan movie our second passport picture photoshoot had great outtakes (here is what Andrew thought of the first try).
You might notice that my child has black palms; no need to worry, Andrew didn’t slave in our garden all day, he didn’t vote in the middle east for the president, he apparently was helping his dad in making a mothers day card for me. We’ll have to see about that!

Married to a “geocacher”

Many of you know that my husband Chris’ recent obsession is geocaching. I have a few of his friends to blame thank for this.

Geocaches are everywhere around, I mean everywhere – in parks, around urban buildings, under bridges/overpasses… hey, you are not even safe at Ikea anymore.

So now when Chris says “it’s nice outside, let’s get out and do something”, he really means “well, there is this geocache I have been meaning to check out/ couldn’t find 3 last tries / my friend just hid or just found.” You get the picture…
A lot of the times we loiter around empty parking lots or abandoned warehouses and I secretly pray that we won’t be arrested for trespassing.

“Ready for caching”

“Let’s find the coordinates”

“Oh, I know where that is!”

“Found it, now we have to log it to beef up my geocaching score”

“Just one more cache, please!”

Occasionally though we go somewhere really beautiful to geocache, like yesterday we went to Mt Diablo and I got to take a few beautiful pictures of California wildflowers along our path.

Isn’t it ironic

Some girls dream and start planning their weddings years before it happens obsessing about every little detail, well it was the opposite for me – I actually got it all figured out afterwords. I didn’t know which exact dress I wanted, what flowers looked good in the church gym or what was the best music arrangement for the reception. The only important thing I cared about were pictures, I even made Chris and myself take them a few days before the wedding despite all the superstitions. I have scanned a few of my favorite ones – can you believe that we had the pictures taken on film?


We went to the Rose Gardens at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, WA one afternoon and I fell in love with that magical garden. It was too late and too expensive for us to change the place of the reception, but Chris and I joked that we should have the renewal of the vows there some day… I agreed.

Well, my plans have been short lived, last week Chris has informed me that the pagoda (the reception center) in my dream park have burned down! Out of all pagodas in the world the one I loved the most had to burn down… One thing I would have changed about my wedding went up in flames – maybe it’s a sign from above…

Thru my lens: Just like people…

This week the world (or at least former USSR countries) have celebrated the 50th anniversary of man in space. Growing up every boy I knew wanted to be an cosmonaut or at least a pilot, and every girl wanted to be married to someone like Yurij Gagarin.

In middle school and high school every year we would go the aviation museum; and even though I have never wanted to operate a large piece of machinery like a plane or a helicopter I liked looking at them.

These large pieces of metal come back to life and look back at you…
Do you see it too or is it just me?

Babydventures: We will get there some day…

First of all, Andrews surgery went well and we really appreciate all the help and support we have received from friends and family.

In short 6 months since Andrews birth I have been to the hospital and to doctors offices more than ever in my life. With Andrew being born 7 weeks early he had to stay at the Nicu for the first two weeks of his life. So much for bonding time… he was connected to a bunch of tubes, it was hard to nurse let alone to cuddle together. I was in a survival mode, counting days down till we get home and relax…

Finally we got released to go home and were looking forward to some peaceful time with our new baby. Unfortunately, a few sleepless weeks afterwards Andrew got a runny nose and stopped sleeping at all (like any baby with a cold symptoms). I thought and I was told it would end soon, but it was getting worse and worse with no end in sight. Next came multiple doctor visits, doubts about my abilities as a mother, sleepless nights and countless hours of on-line research about stuffy noses in newborns. For Andrew it meant saline solution by the gallons and being propped up all day and night long ; I was worried he wasn’t going to start rolling because of his semi-sitting position. No doubt I was labelled as “paranoid first time mother” by a few doctors, but I wanted to find an answer.

Almost when I gave up hope and swore off having any more kids I got referred to a doctor that wanted to get to the bottom of the problem as much as I wanted to sleep at night. She ordered an MRI for Andrew and found a mass in his nose that is not letting his tiny nose to breathe.On one hand it was good news – I got somewhat of an answer and received a validation that I wasn’t worried for no reason. I was proven right – it was not just a stuffy nose like tons of other babies get, I wasn’t crazy! On the other hand finding a small tumour of unknown origin was unsettling and scary.

The “good” doctor (I call her that because she actually did something to help Andrew and me) scheduled a surgery to biopsy the mass and remove it through his nostril. That’s the procedure we went in for this Tuesday. Andrew was his usual smiling self, flirting with the nurses, anaesthesiologists, doctors and other patients. After an hour and a half surgery Andrew was awake and screaming for his bottle. The mass in his nose ended up being a swollen blood vessel, so the recovery is going to be pretty fast.

While his tiny nose is healing Andrew is still struggling to breathe through his nostrils, but I hope the end of this saga is near and i can finally cuddle with my little son. For now we get to enjoy his snorting, laughs and a few still moments to snap a picture or two.

“The CRIB”: Mastered the bedroom

It happened exactly one year ago. Friends asked for photos of the house we moved into two days before. We didn’t immediately post many pictures because the house wasn’t as cute as we wanted it to be.

Today we’ll start with the master bedroom. The house was a foreclosure and the previous owners left some ‘unique features’ in our bedroom:

The entire interior was freshly painted, including door knobs, hinges, light fixtures, and some of the hard wood floors.
New carpet was installed to cover up the fact they had painted some of the hard wood.

The master bath’s shower was so dark it was hard to tell if you were clean or not. You were glad the bath had poor light because you didn’t want to see how stained the floor was.

So with a splash of St Patty’s Paint and an ineffable amount of work in the bathroom, we now present our Master Suite.

Long Live IKEA!

Babydventures: Passport to Emote

Hi, Andy here. This summer I’m going to Ukraine to visit my family.
The State Department says I need a passport with a photo, so my mom
got it her photographic mind that she could get a passport photo from
me. She said it would only take 5 minutes so I agreed.

Oh, I like lights

Why do you have to keep moving the lights? Do you realize that you
have bright lights on all sides of me? Maybe I should shake my head
back and forth to try to look at all the lights at the same time.

Are you talking to me?

You know that no matter how much you wave your arms and make goo-goo
gaa-gaa sounds, I’m still just going to look at the nice lights.

Dad, what are you doing down there?

You’re laying down on the job (giggle, giggle). Maybe it is better
you stay down there out of the picture, you might cramp my cuteness.
Someone who can read told me once that my picture was in the
dictionary filed under cute.

You turned off my lights

Ok you got my attention, can I have my lights back now?

Great the lights are back

I might cooperate with you again.

Please move over

You always want to stand right in front of the tv. Come on, I’m
trying to watch House, so move over. You can take more pictures
during the next comercial break. Don’t mess with House he is my
favorite character.

What?!?!!!??

Stupid House is back on drugs again. I feel shocked and slightly
betrayed after bonding with him.

Where is it?

Give me that bottle. I want it now. I am going to drown my sorrows
in its sweet goodness. No, I can’t drink until I pass out, then I
won’t be any better than that drug boozing Doctor House.

This is not fun

You keep blocking the TV. House is ruining his life again. And worst
of all you said it was only going to be 5 minutes 15 minutes ago!

I’m done

Don’t you dare take any more pictures. If you do, I’ll call Child
Protective Services – no I’ll tell on you to my grandparents!