Wed - March 3, 2004

Overdue Update


Summer movie (!) finally complete, my brother gets married, grandpa Yuri visits, speaking in sentences

Well, we're long overdue for an update, yet here it is. Believe it or not, we just finished up the summer movie of our trip to Cape Cod! Copies are done and ready for mailing. We have another in progress; my brother Rich was married on February 1st, and Katherine and I are working on a nice slideshow of the photographs. We took over 170 photos at the wedding, and had about 60 keepers. About one in three is pretty good for us. One of the really nice things about digicams is that we can shoot away and try to capture the right moment, without worrying about film and developing costs -- just scan and hit quick a delete for the stinkers. Rich and Heidi are living in Florida, so it was a nice change from the cold, windy, and rainy weather here in the Bay Area.

Grandpa Yuri came to visit from Moscow, and Nathan just fell in love with him. He wouldn't even let me give him a bath unless grandpa Yuri escorted him and stayed with him. For that matter, he wouldn't let me change him unless Grandpa Yuri was around. He was rather sad to when grandpa had to fly back, although by now he is used to accepting the going home in an airplane idea.

Nathan's language skills have improved dramatically. He can understand both English and Russian and forms rather complex sentences. His reasoning is quite good, as telling him "all gone" prompts an answer to "pick up more at the store!" His interest in watching our home movies or iPhoto slideshows continues unabated. Trying to pull him away from a slideshow just creates fussing and a tantrum. I really do not understand the powerful draw, but then, my experiences growing up did not include showing home movies by pressing a button on the remote -- we had to set a projector, a screen, and had a whole production. Still, the draw to watching himself -- he calls the movies "baby Nathan" is very powerful.

That's it for now!

Posted at 07:22 PM     Read More  

Sun - October 12, 2003

Short Upate


Spring Movie finally complete, new words, birthday coming up

We finally finished up our Spring 2003 movie project. It takes a while, as we had about an hour and a half of footage to distill down to less than 30 minutes. This is pretty typical. With iMovie, we let the camera roll in hopes of capturing some good action, then just cut out the stuff that we'd just fast forward through anyway. We can also zoom and pan "live" and then edit those parts out to keep things from making the viewer dizzy.

Of course, we add titles, transitions, effects (rarely), and sound tracks. Anna is our key audio post-production expert. Then we need to use iDVD to put all of the pieces together and menus, chapter markers, animations, and so on. Finally, we start producing the half-dozen or so copies.

Nathan loves to watch the family videos. He also loves photographs that include him. Other photos just make him bored. Last night I put on the family video rather than the TeleTubbies DVD that he had requested. What a mistake. I turned of the TV when dinner was ready, and he fussed and cried and tried to pull me out of my chair (to turn the TV back on) for a good twenty minutes. So the Spring movie passes the Nathan test!

Katherine's sixteenth birthday is coming up next week, and plans are underway. Of course, I cannot post anything here yet without ruining any surprises.

Nathan's vocabulary is growing. He sure likes trains, and a good portion of his vocabulary centers around trains: choo-choo, caboose, box car, cow catcher, track, Thomas, tunnel, gate, whoo-whoo, and probably more that I've forgotten. Aunt Lauren gave him a Thomas wooden railroad set last year, and it is still a daily hit!

Posted at 12:41 PM     Read More  

Sun - September 28, 2003

Welcome


New web log (blog) feature added.

We started a weblog, better known as a 'blog to our family site. Since major updates are weeks or more apart, we'll try to use this to keep you up-to-date with family happenings more often.

Expect a short dump on our family in the next few days...

Posted at 02:16 PM     Read More  

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