vignette love: the palace of fine arts

before leaving san francisco we made a quick stop for a snack at one last scenic spot, the palace of fine arts. i was really hoping we would be able to squeeze this into the trip and was so happy that we did (well, so happy we missed a turn and were dumped right into it's gorgeous lap!)

i learned about this place from joe when we first met... he had shot a wedding there during drydock for the pride of aloha. the footage he shot and how he edited it together made the place look magical and i knew i wanted to see it in person. i was not at all disappointed.

we enjoyed a mango and some time relaxing in the sun...
then did a walk through the pergola and rotunda.

 

it was such a beautiful day and the perfect end to our trip.
love.


*all photos taken in "retro" preset toy camera mode using vignette for android.

camera-less.

i know i promised to share our recent trip to california however i'm in a bit of a bind... it seems i left the charger to my point-and-shoot at my parents' house so i cannot take any non-mobile phone photos of my smash journal nor can i get any of the photos that i took before i lost battery juice off of the camera.

fantastic right?

a lot of my photos from california were in fact on my phone but the idea of a blog using only mobile uploads is not really making me happy at the moment. i'll get over it until i have other options of course...

so i'm going to attempt to get back on track here using what i have available.

that said i thought i'd share our short list of cameras for when we replace my canon (hopefully in the next month...)

Canon EOS Rebel T2i or T3i

Nikon D5100

Sony Alpha A580

these are the top 3 i want to check out on my next trip to b&h. i'm 95% sure we'll go with the Canon T2i or T3i, we need to figure out the real difference between the two... but i have friends who are devoted to Nikon and I've heard some good things about the Sony model so i thought it was worth a look.

if anyone has any of these or just an opinion on good mid-level dslr cameras i'd love to hear it!

oh and here's a fun question... if you could have a money-is-no-object dream camera which would it be? i think mine would be this...

Mamiya RZ33

it's only about $18,000 +tax for the package. no biggie. haha. i'm pretty sure i'm no where near the level of photography it would take to warrant this camera but she is pretty sexy as far as cameras go!

i hope all are having an amazing week! tomorrow i'll be sharing one of my favorite stops from our trip in a vignette love feature.  i also have some refashions, my smash journal, the reappearance of inspiration posts featuring my pinterest boards, and lots of new things coming up!

love love love.

(all images taken from B&H listings)

how to road trip with a toddler.

choose a travel buddy.

bring something for everyone.

pack refreshments.

be courteous.

make a few unscheduled pit stops.

prepare for a few breakdowns.

turn distractions into learning opportunities.

savor every moment.

 757 miles.

14 'ish hours.

good conversation.

lots of giggles.

a few road blocks.

piggies all counted.

many car naps.

i know travelling with a toddler isn't easy,

but it's getting to be so much fun.

love.

love these days.

 

 

i got so much done yesterday and really started feeling like i have a plan for the rest of the year.  i can't express just how good that feels! abby is still adjusting a bit to having her time zones all screwy but we had a really fun day together despite some strange nap times that keep popping up. she's been really into playing with her crayons since we came back... i know what activity to start packing on our plane trips in the future. we made our first drawing to give to daddy, he loved it!

we had some rain yesterday so we didn't get our park outings started up again like i had originally planned but we still had a good time. abby has started doing these little bursts of running while walking laps between her room and the living room. it's pretty cute to watch her rev up and then try to slow herself down.

joe was home early yesterday and so the rest of the evening was spent chatting and planning for the weekend. it's nice to have the whole weekend with joe... we definitely need it to recover from our trip. it will be nice to get some things done and just relax. 

 some weekend goals...

trip to storage

start a pet project 

finish journaling the vacation 

get working on some halloween projects

late night knitting & dreaming

with lots of time in between to play with my two favorites!

love.

p.s. i hope everyone has a great weekend! anyone going to maker faire in nyc?

unpacking and updating.

we are back.
great trip, more on that later...

i'm doing my best to get things totally unpacked and put away so i can start unpacking all of the "we're moving!" boxes that had piled up before we left for our taylor family vacation. i meant to update before we left but unfortunately there was far too much going on for me to really share anything.

but here's how august played out...

goodbye old friend.

my camera broke. officially. which meant i had to use my phone and instax for the majority of the trip. i did give in a few times and pulled out the point and shoot but it's no secret that i hate that awful thing. saying goodbye to my canon has been difficult. (especially since my new one won't be in the budget for a few more months... ugh.) joey gave me this camera to take to south america with me 7 years ago... best present ever. well, besides this little cutie of course...

little miss helped inspect each book while we packed.

over the course of three weeks we were thinking about moving, moving, and so not moving. i posted about our amazing weekend in asbury park, but unfortunately that was not the right path for us... adding four hours travel time to joey's day is just not an option right now. no matter how damn cute the house is *sigh*.  i decided at that point to give this area another try and found an amazing place that was pretty much perfect, but unfortunately our application was not chosen...

a very frustrating decision based on having vs not-having pets... but i'm over it. mostly. 

so now we are again sitting tight. we have absolutely no idea what this final year of joey's current contract will bring so we are keeping our options open and putting focus elsewhere for the moment.

just about when the moving issue wrapped up our attention became focused on hurricane irene.

late night "emergency supply" walmart run.

we decided to get all of our supplies late wednesday the 24th instead of waiting until friday and i was so happy we did... when we did go out friday for just a few last minute things shelves were empty.

our family enjoyed the weekend in. nyc/nj transportation was completely shut down so we hunkered down in our little apartment, walked the dogs in between rain bands, and enjoyed lots of playtime & cuddles. 

abby gets another shelf!

thankfully our family and immediate neighborhood came through the hurricane completely unscathed. i know many on the east coast weren't as lucky and we feel very blessed to have been through two hurricanes (wilma in 2005) with no major injury/major damage. i got a lot of cleaning and prepping for our trip finished while abby + joey got lots of father/daughter time in. i got started on a knitting project that was waiting in the "casted on" pile and was even able to spend some time re-organizing the bookshelves (one of my favorite rainy day activities).

and then... september. *sigh of relief*

date totally saved. (love this!)

it was time! roxy was dropped off at the farm to be boarded for 2 weeks, i did some last minute "fall/SF weather" shopping for little miss, and i got us all packed up to head home to indiana for the first part of our vacation.

as i said our vacation was great. i can't believe how much we packed into the past 10 days... we saw so many people that we love, and had such an amazing time. i'll be sharing the whole trip in a few parts over the next few days because this would become a ridiculously long update otherwise.

so now i'm back where i began! unpacking. revising + adding to my to do list + project queue. getting things back to a normal routine while making some more changes in our current space.

and most importantly enjoying a new stage of parenthood with joey - raising a toddler...

when it's just too quiet in her room.

but that deserves an entire post as well.

love.