My photos of UVA

In my previous post, I showcased favorite photos that the kids took while we walked around UVA on a spring afternoon. Now, I get to share my favorites that I took, and I think the timing is great since the students are moving back in this weekend! I've enjoyed the quiet of the summer, and miss being able to walk unimpeded through Grounds, but it's also nice to see it come back to life.

I've taken to shooting in both RAW and JPEG so that I have the RAW files if I ever have time to edit/process them, but I'm also focusing on camera settings so that I don't HAVE to process them afterwards; I'm happy with how they look straight out of camera. This was a batch that I did not have the energy to edit, and didn't really feel the need to!

She's such a pretty subject. And capturing her eyes without needing to edit is hard! Thankfully I think I'm getting the hang of it.

 

The kiddos were so cute. I loved capturing them capturing their favorite images.

Henry out there did understandably give me some pause...he was a bit precarious! But Evan was nearby, just out of camera view, ready to intervene. Plus, he was so excited to shoot from that perspective, it was hard to say no.

And I love this one of N and I taking photos of each other!

I really love getting to share photography with the kids. Natalie is reaching the point where she wants to learn more about composing an image, what she can do with the camera, etc. Henry still just wants to take photos without any interference from me, which is fine! But I'm hoping I can teach him a few things down the road too.

We went to Australia!

That's right, we spent the first two weeks of April this year halfway around the world, in Australia! The kids had been asking to go for a while, since we have family there, and we decided that this year was the time to go - the kids are old enough to enjoy and remember the trip, and also to not be a nightmare on the very long journey. The timing worked out very well with both our spring breaks and spring break in Australia, so we could see Evan's brother and his wife and spend time with them, and I was able to get a great deal on 4 tickets, so off we went!

And of course, like every big trip you take, it did NOT start out well. We were due to be at the airport around 1:30pm that day, and the kids had a half day at school, so we took Lucy for one last good walk before taking her to the dog sitter's...and of course I managed to do this to myself.

 

I didn't do it in any fancy way - I tripped on a part of the asphalt I didn't even see, almost managed to catch myself, and ended up "sliding into home" on my left side. Which resulted in a badly banged up pinky (I was worried it was broken for a while, but luckily just badly bruised), a really banged up chin, and eventually a bruised left shoulder (that took longer to show up). My fingers swelled up pretty much immediately, which I can tell you was not fun on the 14 hour overnight flight!

So, I bandage up, kids come up, Lucy gets dropped off, and we go to the Charlottesville airport. The plan was C'ville to Dulles to LA to Melbourne. We arrived, and of course our flight out of C'ville was already way delayed, which meant we would miss our flight to LA, which meant not getting to Melbourne. NOT going to happen! We rented a car, and Evan FLEW us up the road to Dulles. It was tight, but we made it! Can you make out the worried faces of the kiddos as we went??

Everyone was MUCH happier when we had checked bags, gotten through security, and were waiting at the gate.

And after that, the trip really went smoothly! We spent an overnight in Melbourne, meeting up briefly with Todd (we would see him, Claire, and the kids again after our week alone). We checked out the Melbourne museum (which we had not seen on our last trip), and wandered the city before passing out due to exhaustion.

The next day, we got BACK on a plane to hundreds and hundreds of miles north to Cairns, a town along the northern coast so we could see the Great Barrier Reef and all the beauty to explore. This was literally the view from our hotel room on the first day!

We had a great time in Cairns - the harbor and lagoon were incredible.

And when we went swimming in the lagoon, we had the whole thing almost to ourselves! Very cool experience.

We were in Cairns for 5 days, and did a lot more than just hang out at the hotel, walk along the water, and swim. We also went out to the Great Barrier Reef, had a very wet adventure on Green Island, spent a day in Kuranda (a town in the rain forest), and spent one rainy afternoon at the Cairns Aquarium. I'll definitely be sharing photos from those first 3 as there's a lot of cool things to see! And then we had another week with our family outside of Melbourne and on Phillip Island. It was an amazing two weeks for sure!

Montreal in February

I haven't been including all of my work trips here as posts, both because I'm trying to get through my backlog faster and because they just aren't all that interesting, but when I went to Montreal in February I had the chance to see something very cool that I wanted to share here!

I ended up with a free couple of hours one afternoon while in Montreal, and rather than sit at my hotel I did a quick google search to see if there was anything interesting nearby, and when I saw something that said "Barbie Expo", I immediately thought "I need to see this." It's a traveling exhibit that was installed in a high-end mall in Montreal, close enough to walk to from my hotel, so I bundled up and hiked over. I'm so glad that I did! The exhibit was really cool to see. Just look at the space!

I took photos of TONS of the Barbies, but I'll save you from posting the many that I have and just share a few of my favorites. There were a lot of themes: historical figures, movies, tv, decades, fashion, gems, pop culture, flowers, artists, music, and more!

I absolutely loved this one.

And who doesn't love Barbies dressed to represent precious gems?

This was definitely one of my favorites. Wizard of Oz!

Of course, when I did leave, there was a crazy delay due to snow/ice - the picture on the left was them bringing the de-icer out to try to clear off our plane. I had to fly through Charlotte, and missed my connection due to our delay. The right is me in the Charlotte airport bummed because I had to stay there for a while to make my connecting flight. But I had Starbucks and work to do, and eventually I made it home.

 

...where I found this sign waiting for me. I love those kids <3 p="">

NYC December 2018

After just having gotten back from an adventure in NYC (more on that soon), I thought it was finally time to post photos of my last NYC adventure, from December 2018. I had to go to New York for work, and was able to take my sister with me! We arrived in the afternoon, got checked in and changed, and then walked through Rockefeller Center before dinner. I love the chance to see the holiday decorations!

We then found a really yummy sushi restaurant nearby (and quite inexpensive, particularly for the area!), and headed over to the show we'd bought tickets for.

I finally got to see the Rockefeller Center Rockette's Christmas Spectacular! And wow, was it amazing.

Love the building, love the art deco decor. There was something beautiful to look at everywhere!

 Our seats were over here very close to stage right. Our tickets were inexpensive because we did have a partially obstructed view (we couldn't see the full side of stage right, but that was ok), and I liked being so close to the stage.

Don't we look pretty all dolled up!

The next day I had some client visits, and then we went back out to walk around more. We got to see Rockefeller Center during the day!

 

I love this view so much!

 

And of course no trip to NYC is complete without walking through Times Square at night, even when it's crazy cold out!

What an awesome couple of days we had - so nice to get to do this together with Carrie!

Proud to be their mom

I had a lovely Mother's Day this year, but that's not really what this post is about. It was wonderful to have the breakfast I wanted, enjoy a relaxing massage and facial, go see a movie as a family, and gorge on Thai food for dinner.

But during the down time I had last night, I had some time to reflect on being a mom to these two kiddos, and I realized there were a few things that I wanted to write down before I forgot. Things that make me really proud to be their mom. They have really grown a lot in the past year, with big life changes thrown at them with moving, and I'm really impressed at their maturity lately.

1. Traveling to Australia. We asked a lot of them on that trip: over 24 hours of travel each way, pretty constantly go-go-go doing things for two weeks, exploring new places, trying new foods...and they were with us the whole way. They barely complained at all on the crazy long flights, they understood when we had delays, and even when we got soaking wet in rain, shivering outside and then on an air conditioned boat, they went along with it. They understood that it was all a part of this incredible trip, and we all got through it.

2. School. The kids are really rocking it at their new school. For the first time ever, Natalie earned straight As for two marking periods in a row (both of them at her new school), and Henry earned all top marks too (all 3s out of a scale of 1-3). We're all really enjoying their new school, and it particularly makes me happy to see how much confidence they both have, especially Natalie who has definitely struggled in the past.


3. Dance. Leaving dance was the hardest thing for Natalie with our move, but she's found a good home at Charlottesville Ballet Academy. We really like the atmosphere there, and she's made friends over the past few months. She earned a spot in Cinderella over about 30 other dancers, and was given responsibility to lead her group, after only dancing there for a couple of months! The teachers could see her dedication and great personality, and have put that to use. Then, just this week, we learned that she made it into the CBA Pre-professional program, which is an elite program in the school designed to train those who want some sort of a career in dance. I'm so proud of the work she has put in, and so happy for the additional self-confidence boost it has given her.

And I don't want to leave Henry out of dance, either! We put him into a tap/jazz class where frankly the tap was more advanced than the level he's at. He struggled a bit towards the beginning, but stuck with it, even practicing his harder moves at home, and he went from wanting to quit after the recital to wanting to dance again next school year! Really proud of him for sticking it out.

4. Maturity. I know this whole post is about their maturity, but in general they've gotten to the point where we feel comfortable leaving them home alone for short periods of time. It's not good to put too much of this out on the internet for anyone to see, but I'll say that they've done quite well and have proven themselves to be very responsible. 

So this year, in particular, I find myself incredibly proud to be their mom. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Inaugural half-marathon

After I cut my hair, and had some new head shots taken, I had one more new thing to do - walk a half marathon! I set this as a goal for myself after really stepping up my weekly walks during the first half of 2018. Why not try to go from my regular 4-6 miles to do a full half marathon? I can train for that! Since I don't like the heat, I didn't want to do this during the summer, so I set a date in October (also because October is the best month, as we all know!). I found a recommended training schedule for runners who are doing a half marathon, and was able to stick to it (mostly) for the 7 weeks before my scheduled walk.

I decided to walk from the end of the W&OD trail in Purcellville back home to Leesburg. Because I wanted the walk to be novel, I never trained on that part of the trail, sticking instead to my normal routes through Leesburg (but varying them up some to keep it interesting). The longest training walk I did was 10 miles (as I missed the week I was supposed to do a 12 mile walk), but I felt good about my ability to go 13.1.

Evan and the kids took me out to Purcellville to the end of the trail, so I could start there!

I was ready to go with my arm band, my headphones, and some snacks in my belt pouch.

Oh yeah, and we brought Lucy too! We also stopped at Starbucks so I could get my usual refresher for the first part of the walk... and then it was time to start!

I did take selfies at each mile, but I'm not going to post them all here. Just a few to show progress... oh, and some pretty sites I saw along the way.

Mile 2

Before mile 3:

During Mile 4:

Mile 6 - it's getting warmer out there!

During mile 6, I walked the trail underpass at the Route 9 intersection in Hamilton. Turns out that just past there is this great old bridge that you walk through!

Mile 7, during pee break #3 (yep that refresher went right through me! Luckily the trail was pretty deserted) and stretch break #1

Mile 8 - where I also took stretch break #2. And yep, definitely warmer out at this point!

Mile 10 - I'm back in "civilization!" This was on the outskirts of Leesburg.

At Mile 11, I left the trail at the kids' school to head back towards my house. The final 2 miles were not on the trail. Mile 12 photo: just past the bridge over Rte 15 bypass on Sycolin Rd.

And finally...Mile 13.1! Right in front of my house. I did it!

All in all, I walked the whole thing in just over 3 and a half hours. Average pace was the highest I've EVER done on a walk - the trail is such an amazing place to walk! I love how the Fitbit app tracked everything - really fantastic to see my progress.

In fact, looking at the mile times, it's even more obvious how much easier it is to walk on the trail - the last two miles were by far my slowest, and they were once I had left the trail.

Overall, I have to say I am really proud that I did that, and I want to do another one! Unfortunately there is not a great trail like the W&OD in Charlottesville (I really miss that thing), but I'm sure I can figure out something. I haven't gone longer than about 5 miles since we moved, so I need to step up the training as it gets warmer and try to do this again! 

Also, a big thank you to everyone who donated, as I did this as a fundraiser for St. Jude's (Natalie chose the charity). It really meant a lot to me.