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Our Magical Week in iPhone Pictures March 16, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah, Trips , add a comment

We took hundreds of pictures on our trip.  That means we have hundreds of images to sort through and edit as well.

That is going to take me another day or two since I have work to finish for clients first.

I thought I’d post a random account of our trip with some of our iPhone pics.  On a side note, Disneyland is so high tech . . . you could show up to the park without your camera and walk away with lots, and lots of pictures that they have taken of you!  You see, they use my same camera, (Nikon D90) and flash (SB900) and same flash diffuser (Gary Fong Lightsphere) to take your picture at all the character venues, at all major attractions, etc.  They simply take your pic, and hand you card (it looks like a credit card) and you can then hand that card to any Disneyland photographer for them to take more pics of you and your family.  Honestly, next time, I think I might skip taking in my camera to the park (too much worry to keep it safe, dry, and on my person at all times) and just record our trip on the phone and use the great service provided by the Disneyland photographers!  You can get a  CD with all of your images from your visit for around $50.  It’s worth it I tell you.

Let’s move on to the random account of our trip:

This ride is “It’s a Small World.”  If you don’t know the song yet, don’t worry, you will know it by heart after hearing it 300 times during one ride!

It is a fun ride and certainly a family favorite.

Dallin wasn’t very keen on meeting a bunch of tall, strange, characters, so he passed on meeting the characters up close.   However, Hannah was dying to meet EVERYONE!  She met Pluto and he was in LOVE with her.  :)

I rode the carousel with the kids like 5 times in a row and I almost barfed.  (I do not have the stomach for such rides!)

Hannah also met Goofy and explored a lot of California Adventure Park.

The kids waited patiently in line to meet Tinkerbell . . .

And even though Dallin LOVES Tinkerbell, (It’s not a joke, the kid LOVES Tinkerbell!  We think he has a crush on her!)  he wanted NOTHING to do with her when he saw her face to face.

Disneyland was beautiful at night.  It sort of made me wish I brought my tripod so I could take some long exposures, but I was there to actually experience Disneyland, so I left the tripod at home.

I took Hannah to an animation class at California Adventure Park while David took Dallin back to the hotel for his nap.  Can I just say she LOVED the art class?  You may have noticed how much that kid loves to draw, so it was a hit!

Look at her all grown up, sitting in a classroom with stadium seating, ready for her art lesson!  Gosh, she kind of looks like she’s ready for college and she hasn’t even started Kindergarten!

She followed along very diligently, and was taught by a master artist from Pixar.  What an experience!  (It may not be super obvious from her drawing, but she drew Piglet.)

Did you have a chance to watch the video I posted on our trip?  Well, this is the ride she was explaining in the latter half of the video: “Hollywood Tower of Terror”

Immediately after the ride, she said she didn’t want to ride it again.  However, today she says she DOES want to ride it again.  What can I say, she is a roller coaster junkie!  Check her out on Space Mountain in the picture below!

She is LOVING it!  Check me out on California Screamin . . . I am NOT loving it!  All I could think about was, “WHERE IS MY BARF BAG!”

To top off our trip fun, my good friend Melanie (she blogs over at Write Stuff) hung out with me for a bit at Disneyland with two of her kids for a few hours!  She read about us going there on my blog, so I guess it pays off to broadcast your whereabouts on the internet!  As an exciting side note, her first manuscript, “The List,” was picked up by Covenant Communications and was released last week!  What does that mean?  You ALL can read her new book now!  Pick it up on Amazon or at your local LDS bookstore!  Gosh, I have some famous friends who are big time over-achievers!  :)

My friend Sheri, (you’ve seen her here, and here on my blog and she blogs here) who lives 15 minutes from Disneyland, also read about our trip to California and contacted me so we could meet up for breakfast!  Can I just say how much I love my friends?  It is always so nice to reconnect and chat!  I was able to see her new six week old baby, (as well as her 15 month old) and we all had a lovely breakfast at IHOP.  I was sad to have missed my friend Bethany who just moved to Southern CA, (who also caught wind of our trip) but we simply ran out of time!  Next time, I will plan EXTRA days into our trip to see everyone!

Gosh.  When can we go back?

Disneyland Video! March 14, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah, Trips , add a comment

It’s up!  We have a video to share with you!  Thanks to the trusty iPhone (can I just tell you how much I LOVE our new iPhone 4?  It kind of makes the 3G seem like a piece of crap . . . and I know the iPhone 5 is coming out in a few months, but I STILL LOVE the 4!) we have video footage!

Remember how we didn’t tell our kids we were going to Disneyland? Well, the first part of the video is mostly of Hannah . . . trying to figure out where we were going for our “special day.” Fortunately, she didn’t have an aneurysm when she realized where we were! She was very occupied trying to take it all in, so her expression was a bit calmer than I expected. (Maybe a bit overwhelmed or in disbelief.) However, be sure to watch for her account of the ride “Hollywood Tower of Terror.” She is in true Hannah form there!

Please, enjoy some of our vacation with us!

A Glimpse of Our Magical Week! March 14, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah, Trips , 1 comment so far

We’re back!

Oh.  My.

Disneyland was incredible!  WE LOVED IT!  In fact, we are already planning our next trip there!  :)

I have several hundred images to sort through, and I have assignment deadlines, so this post will be short . . . but expect full coverage of our trip in the next few blog posts!

The weather was PERFECT at 70 degrees everyday.  We missed the spring break rush by about a week (that was planned on our part) so the lines were reasonable (about 15-30 minute wait per ride) and the crowds were manageable.

The kids saw Minnie (and several other characters . . . images later) and it was so magical!

We ate at Aerial’s Grotto and met Aerial and several other princesses.

The breakfast was delicious and worth every penny to see Hannah interact with every princess!

Rapunzel was a popular character to visit.  Often times, the line to see her exceeded two hours!  Thankfully, we downloaded some apps that helped to make our Disneyland experience run smooth.  If  you are planning a trip to Disneyland (or Disney World, whatever) you need to download the “Disneyland Insideout” app.  It tells you wait times at each ride, which rides are closest to you, where the closest bathrooms are, etc.  So . . . we only waited 30 minutes to see the popular (and beautiful!) Rapunzel and Flynn.  The app also tells you park stats, like how full the park is.  Disneyland was at 65% capacity when we went, and California Adventure was at 50%.  It was nice to walk around the park with a plan, (hitting all the short lines) and not aimlessly standing in line FOREVER.

When Dallin met Lightning McQueen at California Adventure Park, all his dreams came true!

He hugged him!   Checked out his tires!  Gave him a few “good ole’ buddy” swats!

It was love I tell you.  Brotherly love.

I have so much more to share from this trip, especially Hannah’s reaction which we recorded.  Hopefully I’ll have a video to share later this week as well.  You don’t want to miss it!

We’ve Been Keeping a BIG Secret for Eight Whole Days! March 7, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Little Man Dallin, Princess Hannah, Thoughts, Trips , 11comments

Hannah has been talking about going to Disneyland for months.  And by talking about it, I mean, SHE’S DYING TO GO.

I’m not even sure how she knows so much about it honestly.  Remember how we live in Utah and not California?  Clearly we have nothing here that even resembles the happiest place on earth, so really, unless she has heard an earful from her friends, we have no idea where she is getting her information.   She is CONVINCED she has enough pennies to get us there and is ready to go STAT.

Well . . .

We have wanted to take our kids to Disneyland since before they were born.  In the last several months, we have been entertaining the idea of taking them, and trying to figure out the best time.

You see, both Hannah and Dallin still take mid-day naps.  (Yeah, yeah, go ahead and play the world’s smallest violin for us . . .)  Toting around cranky kids in the afternoon just sounds like SO MUCH FUN, we decided to NEVER try it.

We decided to take our kids to Disneyland after Dallin gave up his nap so all of us could go ALL DAY and not have a meltdown.

Well . . .

After our successful vacation last week in Las Vegas, where our kids took a three hour nap in the hotel room and  Dallin didn’t have a panic attack (like I expected he would) when he realized he was going to sleep in a foreign place, we decided to entertain the idea again.

And by entertain the idea, I mean we got home from Vegas and three days later, David sent me an email (I was out and about running errands or something) with our tickets, and hotel confirmation.

I know.  The guy rocks!

So my friends . . . we are going!  Next week!  All week!  Three days of driving (one to get to CA, two days to get home) and three days of fun at Disneyland and California Adventure Park HERE WE COME!

Here’s the thing . . .

Our kids don’t know!  I mean, I’m sure we could tell Dallin and he wouldn’t say anything or be overly excited for that matter because he is not the one saving all his pennies and talking about going all the time . . . but Hannah . . .

Oh. My.

Have you seen how excited that child gets?  I’m not sure I could handle her anticipation!  She might explode!

As many of you know, Hannah is an early riser.  During the early morning hours of 6:00 AM to 7:30 AM, she happily keeps herself busy.  A few days ago, she created these images during the hour and a half she waited for us to wake up.

This is her at Disneyland, as a princess of course!  Check out that castle!  Looks pretty authentic to me!

In this image, she told me she is thinking about Disneyland, that is why the castle is so small.

This next image is of David, and Hannah, and me, with a LAMP.  Please friends, let’t not forget to pack a LAMP on our way to Disneyland!

Check out my long legs, and low maintenance hair!  She got David’s buzz just right, and look at how cute she is!  Not sure where Dallin fits into this picture . . . maybe we didn’t have room for him in the car because we had to pack a HUGE LAMP.

Oh, how I love her hearts.  This one reads from the bottom up:

“Emily and to David.”  Apparently, we are on a first name basis with her.  Also, I LOVE how she spells.  Soon enough, she will spell everything correctly and I’m just not ready for that day.  Can’t she just stay four and a half FOREVER?!

This next picture is of Lighting McQueen.  (I’m sure it wasn’t obvious, so I thought I’d help you out on the interpretation of this image.)

And finally . . .

Her shoes.  She traced them on the paper and then drew the straps.  She has informed me that she is wearing these shoes to Disneyland whenever we go.

Clearly we have a child that loves to draw and can’t wait to get to Disneyland.

We’re not sure when we’re going to tell her, but we’ll be sure to video tape her response!  We’re thinking the parking lot of Disneyland would be a fine place to tell her . . . what do you think?

Based on how she responded when I brought home a “princess dress” last week from the Disney Store (she jumped up and down, squealed, yelled, “I’m so GRATEFUL!” and then started to cry tears of joy!) I’m afraid she might have an aneurysm when we tell her!

How am I going to tell her she has an appointment to get her hair done at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique?  And that she’s going to have breakfast with every princess she can think of a Ariel’s Grotto?  What about the World of Color?

As you can see, we are just as excited about all of this as she is!  I can’t wait to tell her!

Nikon Lighting Class March 6, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Photography , add a comment

I really do try to keep my professional work separate from my personal work, and post it on my photo blog, but sometimes I just get too excited about some things that I just have to share them on this blog too!

Last week I attended an advanced lighting class at Pictureline that was sponsored by Nikon.

Basically, I was in a room FULL of Nikon shooters in a photo class catered to Nikon equipment.

I felt right at home!

We photographed different objects using different lighting techniques.  Can I just say how much I LOVED attending this class?  This class was my first photo class outside of AAU, and it was so fun!  I’ve already signed up for another class later this month!

First, we did the “strawberry drop.”  To hear how I shot these images and to see more of them bigger and better, check out my photo blog.

I literally squealed when I got this shot!

Next we have the water drop . . .

I’d never photographed water drops before, so it was very educational and exciting to learn how to do it!  It involved a #2 pencil, and a tungsten white balance to make this shot happen!

Paint on a brush . . .

It was interesting to learn how to get this shot for sure!

This flower shot is not that interesting (to me) but the technique I learned on how to keep the background BLACK when strobes fire was PRICELESS.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come away from a studio shoot scratching my head on WHY the black background doesn’t stay BLACK when used with strobes.

Really, go check out my photo blog for more on this shoot!

The View From the MGM Grand in Las Vegas March 4, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Family, Trips , 2comments

Gosh, this has been a busy week and it’s slipping right by me!  I’m a bit behind on posting these last few images from our trip to Las Vegas, but better late than never, right?

This was the view from our hotel room at night:

And this is the same view in the morning:

One morning, Hannah got up before the sun (surprise, surprise) and she leaned over to me and told me she was bored in our dark, quiet hotel room.  (Dallin and David were still sleeping.)  I told her to go watch the sunrise.

She was thrilled!  I mean, how boring could it be to watch the sunrise?

Turns out, more than 10 minutes of sunrise watching for a four year old is VERY BORING.  (Heck, that is 10 minutes longer than I expected her to sit and watch it!)

Bored out of her brains, she asked me for some art supplies: paper, markers, pencils, etc.

Sorely disappointed in the lack of supplies I brought, (does a pen count?  I had a pen on me!  That counts, right?!)  she picked up the hotel notepad and drew the view from our window:

Next time we take a trip, I’ll be sure to pack lots of art supplies!

Other highlights from our trip:

I can’t wait to go back to WPPI next year!

Giant Octobox? Check. March 2, 2011

Posted by Emily in : Photography, Thoughts , 5comments

I’ve added some upgrades to my equipment and my software.  Everything arrived within a few days and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and under qualified at the same time.

Photoshop CS5?  Check.

Lightroom 3?  Check.

Giant 5 foot octabox?  Check.

2400 watts per second Power Box?  Check.

Two powerful strobes?  Check.

What am I going to do with a soft box this size?!

Looks like I’m now prepared to photograph a group of 100+!  :)