backyard date night {10.23.09}

Melissa and I have a made a habit out of reserving Friday nights as "date night" every week. These used to be a little more involved before the cute little man came into our life (and thank goodness that he did). Now-a-days we try to snag babysitters at least once every month, but on the other Fridays we have to get a little more creative without leaving the house. This was one of those Fridays.

We got the idea of doing long exposure photos for a date night from my brother Joel and his wife Kalli, who had a very impressive long-exposure shoot a while back.



We started out taking pictures of each other but had a lot more fun with the flashlight, which began with some simple shapes such as this lovely spiral by Mel.


Then I tried my hand at some flashlight typography. It took me a couple times to get the letters in Melissa's name not backward (you have to write the word backward because you're standing behind it). I also had some trouble spelling Halloween but Melissa laughed and straightened me out quickly.




Then Melissa proved that she's the queen of drawing. It's pretty amazing that she drew this entire pumpkin and ended at the exact spot that she began. Her ghost is probably my favorite from the whole night. And isn't Melissa cute on the right, with her little scarf and wearing what looks like a pink mini skirt :)




As you know I'm a professional artist, but as you can see my illustration skills still haven't progressed passed stick figures. In case you can't tell, the little one is Van.


Now this last photograph revealed a new lover in Melissa's life named Lon. This is the real reason I'm writing this post. If anyone knows this Lon guy, please give me any leads you may have. Melissa just laughed and wouldn't tell me anything about him.

cruisin'

{11.06.09}

After one long year of waiting (and yet at the very same time, one unbelievably fast year of having this cute little guy in our life), at long last we ventured back out on our trusty, gear-less, back-pedal-brakes beach cruisers. We've been dying all year to get out and go cruising the neighborhoods, but the law here says children must be at least 1 year old and must have a helmet. So you can guess what he got for his birthday. Or what we got for his birthday. :) One baby's first birthday, one front baby carrier, one crash test dummy helmet, and 3 days later, and we were bursting at the seams to go let Van experience the wind in his face firsthand.

And so he did. Van's a funny kid. Unless you're throwing him 10 feet in the air, swinging him upside down, or tickling him like crazy, he's pretty straight-faced when he's happy with life. He just stares straight ahead and totally relaxes, and if you knew him, you would know this is a big thing (relaxing, that is). He's done this since the day he was born whenever we took him outside, and today he's no different. He gets so relaxed he even lets us strap a crazy big helmet on his head. It's hard to encapsulate in words how funny (read: so absolutely adorable it makes us want to kiss his face off) he looks riding in that little carrier, so instead of trying to do just that, we'll post a video and let you see for yourself.

We're feeling pretty lucky to be riding around with this cute bundle of boyness behind the handlebars. (he's 1...can you believe it? More on that to come of course...)

31

{7.01.09}

But what a hot 31 he is.

Happy day of your birth, lover. We're all so happy to have you in our world. :)







(yes, this is super late. We're catching up, people. Someday I'll once again be posting in present tense.)

HOW Design Conference {6.23-27.09}

My work finally sent me to the coveted HOW Design Conference in June which I've been interested in attending for the last 4 years, ever since I've been there. It's probably the biggest graphic design conference in the country and this year it was in "Weird Austin", which I quickly learned was its nickname.







1. AUSTIN TEXAS
The city was definitely a little strange, granted we only hung out in the main downtown area of Austin which brings out the crazies. Probably the two weirdest things were the "Weird Austin Museum" that we went to on the first day and saw all kinds of two-headed animals and shrunken-headed men, I didn't include a photo of this place, a little too weird. The second thing that was weird is that there are occasional cross dressers that walk the streets, I saw a kid about my age in a dress looking all dolled up acting nothing was weird at all, and there's even a famous street walking cross dresser who's about 58 years old named Leslie Cochran, if you don't believe me look him up on Wikipedia.

One of things to do there in the evening is go to a certain bridge and watch millions of bats fly out from under bridge to fly away and go catch their food for the night. The bats were coming out in swarms and kept coming for 10 to 15 minutes.





I did like all the art on the walls of buildings as I walked around the city, it wasn't just ugly graffiti but pretty creative designs. I also liked the capital building there, it's a cool looking one.








Since the moment I laid eyes on this beautiful, blue-tiled wall, I wanted to have a photo shoot at it, which we did.




While we were trying to get this jumping photo we had to keep jumping because there were so many cameras on timers taking pics at different times. I put my camera on video without telling anyone and I caught everyone busting some sweet moves :)



2. HOW DESIGN CONFERENCE
I made the most of the conference by attending every possible event that was offered, taking copious notes as I enjoyed the classes, meeting as many people as I possibly could each day, and making a point to meet every presenter that I enjoyed. Two of the best presenters were LDS designers from Salt Lake City. Some of my favorite classes included "Good vs. Great Design", "50 Ways to (Almost) Get Fired", "The WOW Factor: Developing Strong Presentation Skills", and "Visual Story Telling".


I was interviewed by the HOW conference peeps and now I'm famous.


One really neat thing we did before the conference was a thing called studio tours where they take us on a tour of 6 different design firms located in the Austin area and we got to see how their business functioned and what kind of design work they would do. It was amazing to me how different each of the firms were with what type of work they took in. I have a couple photos of those firms below.




This is an inspiration wall inside the company Milkshake, since I saw this I made myself an inspiration wall at work.


Another cool thing at the conference was a typography exhibit that had a bunch of amazing posters, I could have spent all day looking at those posters. It would be fun to work on a poster like that some day.




I attended the "Keep Austin Weird" closing reception and dance where we lit up the dance floor! I donned some sweet white spectacles and some glow sticks as a belt buckle and shoe laces. It was a good time, as you can clearly see for yourself in the photo.

nyc with the ladies {6.26-29.09}

Nothing screams a weekend of fun like hanging out with old roomies in the big city. Allison wrote is so much better than I could (see here), but I must give it a whirl for journaling sake, if nothing else.

preface--->
2.5 years ago I was a busy college student buried up to my elbows in schoolwork and taking years off my eyesight daily by spending hours on end in the computer lab. I had a record of taking routine detours away from my schooling to experience this (nannying in NY) and that (mission en la gran Argentina), but at that point I was at long last tired of seeing all my friends move on and graduate while I was barely scraping away an occasional semester. I thus determined that it was my time to bite the bullet, take a seat, and stay put until I too could join alumnus status, with high hopes of leaving starvation and student poverty behind and finally earning a decent income for myself (fingers crossed). Stay-put goals fully in place, I also realized to gain said income, it might be somewhat beneficial to gain experience prior to my grown-up job. Stumbled upon a DC internships sign, saw one last chance for a final excursion, loads of forms and interviews later, and I was flying cross-country to a completely new experience, to live with people I entirely did not know.

And I lucked out.

Four amazing, fun, hilarious, ambitious, let's-all-be-goofy-together, inspiring, beautiful girls. Lucky, lucky me. They were just what I needed that summer, and it was they who screamed the morning after I kissed Jon Smith for the first time on August 8.









Who wouldn't want to keep in touch with people like that? Seriously? And who wouldn't want a weekend get away with some of them?

We were missing Kami & Mindy, but Ash and I made the Chinatown bus trek with Van man from DC to NYC to land ourselves a stay at the lovely Riley home in Harlem. We'd all been to NYC together once before and loved it, while living on a scarier-than-starving-college-student intern budget, and we have the photos to show for it.



This time, however, with baby Van in tow, we opted for a more relaxing NYC weekend (ever heard of that?) and Allison and Noah gave us just that. Low key hanging out, movie watching, ordering out (meaning Noah goes and picks up the food), girl gabbing, and even getting all ambitious and taking a few hours out on the town. We checked out the awesome High Line Park that opened that day (check it out, it's awesome), took our sweet time walking, and later indulged ourselves with a little Times Square cheesecake. Yum. Best hosts ever award goes to the Rileys. Oh how I love your crepes and beautiful array of street-vendor fruits. And oh how I love your stories and down-to-earth-ness. Don't be surprised if I come running back soon!

{note: I took WAY too many photos, and couldn't choose between most, so there are quite a few here. Also...totally behind=totally unedited photos.}

our stunning hosts:


the ladies + van:


high line highlights:













pieces of the big apple:























in the square:




this cracks me up. (Thank you Noah for so kindly doing the baby carrying!)




I'm not posing here, I promise, I'm pulling my hair out of my face. But I had to post this one, because look at Van's face! It's so funny! I think it's safe to say his little baby brain might have been a little overstimulated.


my cute roomies.


photo of the trip:



and @ the pad:

van's hand-fashioned crib (thanks Noah!)


the babe. so THIS is what it's like to have natural light in your home. LOVE IT.








the royal treatment for breakfast.



I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Ladies? Who's in?