Daily Archives: February 26, 2009

Contest, Family, Travel

Going to the House of Mouse!

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See You Real Soon

We just found out today that we are going to be going to Walt Disney World for our Vacation of a Lifetime instead of going to Arizona. While we certainly do want to go to Arizona at some point things just didn’t work out for that location. I was upset about it for a little while but how much can you really complain when you have won a free trip.

We’ll be there from May 14 – May 18, 2009. So we will be staying at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel & Spa. This is gonna be quite the step up from the econo places we’ve stayed in the past. This is also an official Walt Disney World® Hotel in Lake Buena Vista so there is a shuttle to the parks. We are still up int he air about maybe renting a car so we’d have more control of when we get back and forth to the hotel and so we could maybe drop in on our favorite folks in downtown Orlando, the IZEA team.

There are many people down in Orlando that I’d love to catch up with, maybe we can do a dinner one night in Downtown Disney or something like that. It will depend upon whether or not we have a car. Of course we hope very much that Grandpa Dano and Mimi can come up to Orlando to visit and also we hope that Auntie Mo can come down too.

I’m very excited to get back so I can spend some time taking some photos. There is just so much to see at Disney and the photo opportunities are amazing.

Cinderella's Castle

I will have to check out Flickr for some inspiration. Then I can try and plan out my shots. Of course I will be taking my Xshot with me so that we can get some great family pics.

On this trip I will be taking another new device. I’ll be taking with me my new Polaroid PoGo. With the PoGo I can make instant photos that require no ink because of the special ZINK paper. I am happy to say that ZINK has sponsored me with products for my upcoming Blogging Event, “Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs” at Speed of Thought Playhouse on the 13th of March. But back to the ZINK Paper. For our trip I will buy some ZINK paper to create a scrapbook while on the vacation. During our downtime we can pick photos, instantly print them and stick them right into the scrapbook. I said stick because you can peel off the backing on ZINK paper and it is sticky. There are so many cool applications for this and once you see the “Blogs, Brews and Belly Laughs” (It will be broadcast live on USTREAM.tv) you will see another great application of the paper. I can’t wait!

Because ZINK was so generous to me I want to tell you so much about the paper. Here are some Key Features of ZINK Paperâ„¢:
* Zero ink required.
* Capable of reproducing millions of vivid colors at very high resolution.
* Earth Friendly. Less waste – No cartridges, no extra packaging to throw away.
* Protected by a polymer overcoat, providing water resistance and image durability.
* Affordable for everyday use.
* Not sensitive to light.
* Long lasting and designed to resist fading from exposure to light, heat and humidity.

Family, Photo-A-Day

Buff, Buff, Buff!

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Buff, Buff, Buff!
Photo-A-Day #1420

The other day our friend Mo of We’re in a Fight, told us that the woman behind Bare Escentuals was looking for pictures of people who use the product. Well, Allison uses the product. She uses the heck out of it. she has all sorts of containers and brushes and many things that are a complete mystery to me. She even has them all labeled.

Eva watches Allison apply her makeup and Allison gave Eva one of her worn out brushes. I didn’t even realize these things could wear out but they do. Eva takes the brush and brushes her cheeks and says “buff, buff, buff”. This is part of that secret application process that I am perfectly fine being clueless about. We’ve tried to get Eva to do the “buff, buff, buff” thing on camera but she’s a difficult one to catch when you want her to do something specific. Believe em she does a bunch of cute stuff but if you aren’t right there at that exact moment with the camera you aren’t getting a repeat performance.

Case in point, tonight Eva said her name for the 1st time. She said it clear as day and said it many times. I rushed into the bedroom where Allison and Eva were talking and fumbled with Allison’s camera to make it do video. I did catch her saying it but what was funny was that each time Allison said, “Say your name” Eva would say “Name” Then she would say “Nate” and then pick some other word. Eventually she got back around to “Eva” and it was so cute! She really stresses the “E” and totally drags out the whole name to make it sound like a name much longer than 3 letters.

Back to the photos. Allison was trying to take some photos of Eva with her camera and the Xshot for this task but Eva was being squirmy. The Xshot is a great product but sometimes a wiggly kid makes things difficult. So, I grabbed my camera. It still had the telephoto lens on it which actually worked in this base because it didn’t distract Eva. However, and here is a Photography Tip: Check your settings before you start firing. I’ve been trying to get off auto lately and so I had my camera set on manual. The lighting was great but the speed was too slow so my 1st 10 photos were totally blurry. Those were the best ones overall too. Eva was still enjoying playing and wasn’t being fussy. Once I realized my mistake I just flipped quickly to auto to fire off some more shots. This was the one I ended up with, best of the bunch.

Ugh and I cropped my image at 1/4 usual size. Great. I’ll fix tomorrow with larger photo.