The Importance of Pictures

I've known this for a long time, but yesterday it really hit home that I put far too much importance on pictures.  Yesterday, I spent the day chasing pictures and wound up frustrated and short-tempered.

Pictures are my thing.  That's what I tell people.  I love looking at pictures.  It thrills me when my co-workers bring in family pictures to share.  When my children were born, I took lots of pictures of them. I did not want to miss recording anything for posterity. Taking lots of pictures allows for that 1 in a million shot to show up every once in a while when you capture a personality in perfect clarity with a beautiful image.

As the kids got older and changed less over time, I took fewer pictures.  They are tired of them.  With a digital camera, I can cut out the ones that are bad right away and keep taking pictures as I shoot for the perfect shot. When we brought Wyatt home, he was so anxious to have his pictures hanging in the house, so I know that pictures record a history that is important. Because I blog instead of scrapbook now, neither Wyatt nor Julia has had the luxury of perusing albums of their growing up years.  I really need to fix that.  However, my obsession with all these pictures is clearly out of control, and yesterday was the proof.

I scheduled senior pictures for Zach with 3 photographers.  Yes, you read that correctly.  He has to take the school yearbook picture, so I had no choice in that photographer and opted not to buy those.  We have had the same photographer take pictures of our children since Zach was three months old.  I had grand plans to finish up these growing up pictures with him by having him do the senior pictures.  His work is phenomenal, and he captures my children well.  However, when I brought home the price list, Andy vetoed that plan right away.  It was far beyond the already hefty budget we planned for these pictures. Still wanting to honor the friendship we have developed with this photographer over the years, we opted to take Zach there for his formal, tux pictures.  I really wanted this classic picture that marks this milestone, and our other choice for photography does not have a studio.  I will say that while we could not afford to go all out with with our photographer, I do not think his prices are completely unreasonable.  He actually has a staff whom he has to pay.  He has studio expenses.  He is a master photographer with years of experience and training.  He is at the top of his field, and photography is his livelihood.  I want digital images which are too expensive with this photographer, and there are some things that need to be tweaked in order for him to perfectly fit my desires.  I pay the difference for a good photographer because a good one backs up all his files.  If my house were destroyed, I should be able to recover all those professional photos taken over the years because my photographer backs up all his work twice. Zach went for those pictures yesterday, and we will see how they turn out.

In addition to the tux pictures, my desire was to have some pictures taken of Zach on the football field.  He spent and continues to spend much of his high school time there.  I have never had the access to get those photos myself, and I am no pro. Therefore, we also hired a photographer for location shots, and I expect these to be my favorites.  This photographer is a family friend who does photography on the side.  He is also a trained professional who just happened to choose another career to support his family, and I really like his work. He knows Zach and knows Zach's reputation, so he wants to capture that.  We also had those pictures scheduled for yesterday, but they have been postponed due to rain.  It was in our race to that appointment that I realized just how crazy this all is.  We could not find Zach's back-to-back district champ shirt which was important for the pictures because we cannot find the district champ football that needs to be sewn on his letter jacket. I was so upset that we had neither.  Then it occurred to me that the whole point of these pictures is to get a good picture of Zach.  It is not about whether we record for posterity that his team won the district championship twice.  I just want it to be apparent that he played a sport he loves while in high school.  The day was overcast, and we were going for sunset pictures on the field.  You cannot get good sunset pictures on an overcast day.  At first I thought that was not big deal, then I realized that I really want those sunset pictures. Maybe we will get them.  Maybe we won't, but after all, I realized just how selfish all of this is.  I am chasing a picture instead of just enjoying my son. Because of rain, we have to reschedule, so we will watch the weather next week, and if the photographer is available, we will get this done next week.  If the schedule and weather do not cooperate, we will schedule these later.  I am fine with that and have actually wondered if I should have waited for fall.  However, the senior ad is due in mid-October, so I hope to have the pictures in time to choose some for that layout.

Ironically, I remember my own senior pictures.  My disorganized large family complicated that day.  I could not find the shoes I wanted to go with one of my outfits.  My mom did not go with me to the appointment, and I got lost, so I was late. I did not refresh my lipstick and always hated that about those pictures - that and the wrong shoes.  Some things never change.  Now I am the mom who does not have it together for this session. Today, I have no idea where any of my senior pictures are.  My parents paid a lot of money for them, and now they are just gone.  Likewise, Andy gave me the last of his favorite senior pictures, and I have not seen it in years.  I spend all this time backing up picture files and choosing photographers who do that, but my life is not unfulfilled because I have no idea where my senior pictures are.  I love looking at old pictures, but I don't think my kids care if they ever see a picture of me from high school. So it's all much ado about nothing.

Senior Pic time

We have appointments for Zach's senior pictures today.  The school requires that he be clean-shaven, and that is my preference as well.  Before going, I snapped these pictures in the backyard.  He is wearing his current favorite shirt, and we caught the goatee/mustache that he has been sporting all summer.

Introducing...

my new nephew

Isaac Joseph

He arrived yesterday (July 29).  I have not yet met him.  We decided to take one of Zach's last free days before school starts to visit an out of town amusement park.  We have season passes, and Zach has not really used his.  We also figured Jonathan and Danielle could use a quiet day to get to know Isaac in all of his precious newness.  We plan to meet him today, so more pictures will be forthcoming.  

7.75lbs, 19 inches

I am amazed by his full head of hair.  I don't think we have seen that much hair on a newborn since Logan was born.

He does not look much like big brother Ira.

He does look similar to big sis Regan.


Of course, I love him already.  We are all worried about Ira.  He's attached to Mommy, and she won't be able to lift him for a few weeks.  Pray for this family as they adjust to life with three kiddos under three years old.

Playing Around with Photo Editing

antique effect

antique again

blurred edge

cropped

Church Camp 2013

We arrived home from NYC just after 9:00p.m. on Saturday night.  By 2:00 Sunday afternoon, I was on my way to camp with Wyatt and Julia.That was too short a turnaround time for laundry and packing again, so Andy had to make the hour drive to bring items I forgot.  I slept in my clothes all week thinking I had forgotten my pjs only to find them in the bottom of my suitcase when we came back home.  I have never been a camp counselor before, and I was definitely out of my element.  

Camp was an action-packed, fun, crazy, challenging, and exhausting experience.  I slept in today (after getting up with a dog at 6:00a.m. and staying up until 7:30a.m.) I did laundry, cleaned a little and napped to recover while grieving the fact that I do not have a full week left of summer before I return to  work:(

Water Wars

friends

more friends

zipline - Julia loves this.  I climbed to the top, freaked out and went back down the stairs - probably not the best example for the kids.

dance party

Wyatt's favorite activity was archery.  He was pretty good at it, and I already have information on signing him up for a class in the fall.  I wish I could join him.  I would never have known this if I had not gone to camp with him. 

the lake

dance party

getting ready to head home

I came home on my anniversary to a clean house and fresh flowers in several places.

I said earlier that I married up.  When we returned from NYC, we found nasty water all over the basement floor.  We thought our air conditioner was leaking.  However, it was a main sewer pipe backing up.  Andy cleared the pipe himself and cleaned up the mess.  That's my man!!

Lilies are my favorite, and these are gorgeous!

We are finally having a playdate tomorrow.  Wyatt's good friend is moving out of state next week, so we are having him over one last time :(

Final Thoughts on NYC

Lodging:

We stayed in a studio apartment on the border of Brooklyn and Queens.  Our lodging was clean and comfortable.  We stayed four nights and brought a couple of towels as only one towel was provided per person for the stay, and we did not have laundry on site.  Our hosts actually live upstairs, and they have small children.  We could hear the children from time to time, but we never heard them at an unreasonable time.  I could see where some might be bothered by that, but child noise does not bother us at all.  We are more bothered by people who are completely intolerant of children.  I understand being bothered by out of control child behavior, but normal activity and noise is not a problem.

Someone asked, so I will share our process in choosing lodging.  We went with HomeAway which was recommended by a friend.  This is the actual link to our apartment: 

http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p193339

I looked at several places and read the reviews before making my choice.  The difference between a hotel and a private apartment is that when you book an apartment, you put down a deposit  and commit to the stay.  It is not like a hotel where you can cancel and likely be refunded any money you already paid.  I found the apartment to be more affordable and the reviews to be consistent.  When I looked up hotels, the reviews were often all over the place especially for those that we could afford.

We had a basement entry.

comfy bed

I had no intention of cooking, but we had a fridge for leftovers and dishes for when we split a salad, all very handy.  Some of the hotels had these things, and some did not.  We also had free, safe street parking which was offered at some hotels, but when reading the reviews I found that the free parking was in the lot and there were maybe 9 spaces - a gamble I did not want to take.




I woud stay in NYC this way again.   It worked out very well.  The owner was reasonable and told us that he should never count the money when he is paid by his guests.  He has never had anyone pay too little but often had to give money back to those who paid too much - a nice commentary on humanity.  The only downside to this process was that we had to meet the owner and pay in cash for our lodging which did not happen until our last day.  Other guests indicated that they got great tips from him on where to eat and things to do.  I was not crazy about carrying the cash with me.

Cheesy Tourists:

We left home early on Tuesday morning, and the first time we heard from the kids, Julia called to request that we bring something back for her.  Wyatt called shortly afterward with the same request.  We really thought we would find some fun trinkets in Chinatown reflecting Chinese culture, but we did not.

We ended up finding a reasonably priced NYPD shirt for Zach in Chinatown, and he loves it.  For Savannah, we purchased the classic NYC jersey worn by John Lennon in his most famous picture.  Andy bought the shirt with said picture on it for himself.  For Wyatt we found a cool snow globe (he's a collector of trinkets such as these).  Julia loves purses and shoes. Initially, we were going to give her the purse I bought to use while in NYC but decided it was too big, and I ended up really liking it.  We bought a small cross-body purse for her, but she is trying to take my NY purse.  We always buy magnets for our fridge when we travel, so we got one for us and one for a co-worker of Andy's.  One of the reasons we had to return to Manhattan the last night was to get Julia something.  Of course, I also bought a charm for my bracelet to commemorate both our trip and 20th anniversary.

Surprises:

The thing that surprised me the most about NY was the prices. I really expected everything to be outrageously expensive and found that prices were actually fairly reasonable.  When we arrived to the blistering heat, I thought we would be spending $3 a piece on water bottles, but they were $1 just like at home.

Our meals were very inexpensive especially considering that we ate out for every meal.  Nothing was more than we would have paid at home and often was less.  A slice of NY pizza makes for a full meal for me, and we could find that for $2.50 or less a slice.

ATM machines were available everywhere, and I was surprised at how many places only took cash.  That was a bit of a problem as we needed our cash for tolls on the way home.  We stayed close enough to a grocery where we could get cash back on purchases that we were okay on that since we were not about to pay ATM fees.

I did not expect such pricey tolls.  I knew when we flew tot he Northeast a few years ago that the truck carrying our supplies paid $60 in tolls one way, but I assumed that was because it was a big truck.  The toll roads were the worst we drove, so almost $40 in tolls each way for less than stellar roads seems like robbery.

I expected to walk to the point where my feet hurt.  I walk and run enough at home that I didn't expect that to be a big problem.  I went into the trip knowing my tennis shoes should have been replaced but did not expect the blisters.  By the end of the first day,  my feet were blistered in three places, and the number increased on the second day.  Lovely.

The heat really got to me. Andy was surprised by how much water I drank.  I was surprised by the fact that Andy did not seem as bothered by the heat.  Usually, I can take the heat, and he cannot.

Final Thoughts:

I really wrestled with whether or not to take this trip as it was expensive and far away.  We have traveled more than usual this summer, and summer is going crazy fast as a result.  This may be our last normal summer with Zach, so it was hard to leave the kids. However, over the last few months, I have felt convicted that we should celebrate marriage.  With the staggering divorce rate and the number of people choosing not to marry in our culture, I felt that a strong marriage should be cause for celebration.  Instead of bemoaning the negative, we should embrace the positive.  Our children should see us celebrate and see that we enjoy each other's company.  They should leave our house with a positive image of marriage as should our friends and our children's friends.  

When Savannah and I attended the wedding in Kansas City a few weeks ago, I witnessed a really neat idea for the wedding reception.  Married couples were asked to celebrate their marriages with a danceto kind of have an anniversary celebration at the wedding. As the dance went on, the DJ asked couples to leave the floor if they had been married less than 10 years, then less than 20, and 30 and so on.  Finally, he got to 60 years with one couple left on the floor.  While I know that divorce and death can make this wedding tradition painful, I thought it was beautiful and a great reminder that we really need to celebrate marriage.  I hope to someday plan weddings for my children, and I would really like to include this neat addition to the reception.

Andy has put up with me for 20 years.  I married up.  Here's to the next 20!

Subway Art

I did not even notice the bronze, subway art until Andy pointed out.  After he did so, I snapped pictures as I noticed them.  I found the subway stations to be pretty nasty, but the trains were clean.  I was a bit surprised by that.  I visited Boston as part of a mission trip several years ago and was impressed by the clean subway stations and trains there, so I expected the same of NYC.

I often had to scan my card twice as it did not take on the first try.  On our last and hottest day, the card scanned, but the gate would not open.  We had to choose to wait 18 minutes to use it again or walk to another station.  We walked, definitely had issues on Friday.

Radio City Music Hall, Day 3, Part 3

We took our final trip into Manhattan to see Radio City Music Hall lit up at night.  

As we headed out of the subway station, a rat tripped Andy.  Eww!  He must have reacted fairly New Yorkerish because he was immediately stopped by two teenagers wanting directions.

It was hot!  I worked hard with the camera to get a shot of the temperature on this marquis.  92 degrees as we approached 10:00p.m.  Yikes!!

This building was just cool.

Getting one shot was easier said than done.  The lights on the vertical signs are pink and blue, but my pictures kept coming out with read and yellow.  I played a lot with the camera to get the color right.

street vendor across the street

The whole picture.


I am not quite finished with my NYC posts.