Maker Faire NYC 2010

In September Audrey and I attended Maker Faire in New York. You can read the original blog post for the details. I'm on a roll today and got the video I shot there edited into a movie.

Click on the image to go to the video.

Beautiful October

Beautiful October

I've been enjoying the arrival of Fall with the cooler days and the color. I was going to rake leaves today but our trees still have about 25% of their leaves so instead I'm editing photos and videos. I'll rake next weekend.

It's very unusual for us to have a homebody weekend but we are having one now. The TV has been off all day and the girls are playing together very well. Carol is enjoying the peace.

On recent weekends we've had some good fun. We visited the Davis Mega Maze as a work social event. We spent 90 minutes in the maze, whereupon we stumbled upon the exit and decided we were done. But the girls went on to play with the big chess and checkers sets and on the bouncy obstacle course.

Two weeks ago we drove to New York for the weekend and visited my friend Bill, his girlfriend Sara and his kids Cole and Tatum. It had been a year since we saw them so it was nice to hang out. We all went to the New York Hall of Science together and the kids had a lot of fun.

We have a lot of forested "reservations" very near our house so I've taken the girls for walks. One of my favorite things about New England compared to Seattle is the distinctness of the seasons. And I especially love how different the forests look and feel in each of them. I wanted the girls to get steeped in the "fall woods" feeling.

Audrey yesterday wrapped up her first season playing soccer. She was on the Colts with Coach Joe. We had some good talks about what it means to play on a team. Audrey liked soccer and she'll play again in the Spring season.

The girls were really anticipating Halloween. They started counting down the days about two weeks prior. They had decided what they would be and remained pretty constant: Audrey wanted to be a cat and Charlotte wanted to be a vampire princess. Carol of course did a wonderful job with the costumes. When the day actually arrived the forecast was for chilly temps in the low 40s, so Carol ran to the fabric store and bought fleece and made capes for each of the girls. They can be used as blankets after Halloween.

One of Audrey's best friends from school, Aidan, came over with his family because their neighborhood doesn't have very good trick or treating. In our neighborhood it was fantastic. We covered both sides of four streets and the kids raked in the candy. The capes were perfect - Charlotte would not have lasted nearly as long without it.

Both girls love their schools. Carol and I both met with Audrey's teacher a couple of weeks ago and she's doing great (she gets bored in Math because it's "too easy" - just like her dad as a child). Carol met with Charlotte's teacher last week and all is going just fine there, too. Audrey is in the phase now where she can't help but try to read any words she sees. Charlotte is trying to emulate her big sister.

Summer/Fall 2010 Video Clips

With decent HD video cameras on our phones now, we shoot random little pieces of video all the time. Each clip isn't enough to make into its own standalone movie so I edited together a bunch of clips from the past few months just to get them "published". That's the only way they'll become "home movies".

Click on the image to go to the movie.

Storyland (August 2010)

Back in August we made our first visit to Storyland in Glen, NH. It's a childhood tradition in these parts and I'm sure we'll be back each summer as long as we're east coasters. You can read my original blog post about the trip.

I finally got around to editing our video from Storyland. Click on the image to view the result.

Seattle/Richland Summer Vacation Video

I finally got around to editing the video from our July visit to Seattle and Richland. I always find it hard to strike a balance between shooting the right kind of video to tell a good story (which requires establishing shots, for example) and just enjoying whatever it is we're doing. And when we are in Richland we are often so relaxed that we forget to take any pictures at all!

We had a wonderful time seeing our families and many friends while we were back. We're already looking forward to next summer's trip.

Click on the image to go to the video.