Blog – Page 3 – SidebySide Photography

Project Play Room

one of the more unique features of this house we bought was a small room we like to call the bonus room. it’s too small for a bedroom, but has a teeny tiny closet like maybe it was meant to be one. but then there were these sliding glass doors which would not be ideal for a room. when we first bought the house, we used the room for the piano and books and very few people used the room. we maybe only used the sliding glass door once because as you can see, we already have one in the living room which made that one totally unnecessary. we long ago decided we’d use the ‘bonus room’ as a play room when we had kids, and so we finally finished this project!!!

here’s the view from the living room to the giant hole after the doors were removed.

we are huge proponents of hiring professionals to do things right. we hired professionals to do our backyard a couple of years ago because we knew we can only do so much diy. so getting the door out, a window put in and walling everything back up we hired out. everything else we did ourselves 🙂

my painter man!

starting in on my magnetic chalkboard wall!

my dad helped me frame it up.

and here’s the finished (ish) product! i have a new picture going in the middle and i’m sure i’ll make some minor adjustments as time goes on, but overall, this is what we were going for!

teepee made by little braves

shelf and rug from ikea (shelf bought used, rug eventually returned because it was super cheap and bunched up and made the baby trip)

pouf from target (totally recommend!!! we love that thing)

curtains made by me and fabric from joann’s

Tags crafting, home renovation, play room, upcycling

europe places to go reminisce stories to tell

The time I missed a train

on thursdays i try to do a little travel throwback, emphasis on the story from one photo

2006 – photo taken on my first DSLR – canon rebel

i told my parents that i thought it would be fun to visit my brother in budapest for christmas. yes, i told my poor parents that i’d miss christmas a second time to join my brother who was also missing christmas. instead of them being bummed, they decided to join me. i hadn’t traveled with my parents since i was a kid so it was definitely an interesting experience! we thought we’d make more of a trip out of it than just visiting my brother and we planned on going to several countries.

well into our journey together, i needed some space from my parents so instead of staying in the same hotel as them, i decided to find a hostel while in poland. i found a really fun hostel and met some awesome people from around the globe. after a couple days in poland, we had planned on going to slovakia and then back to hungary to leave for home. my parents and i were going to meet at the train station in the morning and head out.

but i didn’t wake up.

the hostel owner was supposed to wake me. i didn’t have an alarm clock or a phone. they were supposed to wake me up but they forgot. so i slept. i woke up minutes before the train was supposed to leave. at first i freaked out a little. i didn’t know what to do, my parents didn’t have a phone, i didn’t have a phone and they were probably wondering where i was and assuming i was dead like parents do.

so i did my best and emailed them not knowing when they’d be able to check. things like this make me wonder what we ever did before smart phones…

then i looked up train times for overnight trains going to budapest so i wouldn’t miss my flight too and enjoyed one extra day in poland. that’s the night i snapped this photo. i hung out with a new friend (who is still a facebook friend after all these years) all day and then wandered around by myself that night. i don’t know what this statue is all about, i don’t remember even reading the plaque, but the weather was brisk and my cheeks were red, and i was left behind in poland an extra day and making the best of it.

moral of the story: don’t get left behind in a country…but if you do…live it up.

Tags missing a train, poland, travel stories

asia places to go

the ‘hello’ toilet

on thursdays i try to do a little travel throwback, emphasis on the story from one photo

2004 – small village, cambodia, 35mm film

the first couple weeks living in cambodia, we met our next door neighbors. this seemed to be meant to be as they had only moved in weeks before we arrived and the mom, sinat, knew english. she had worked for an american family before and knew enough english to help us get around. she was an invaluable asset for us as she quickly showed us the ropes of getting a deal and not getting swindled. we learned fast that we had been overcharged for many things due to our somewhat…pale…nature 🙂 we became fast friends and she endearingly referred to herself as our ‘adopt mom’.

she had family in the outskirts of a town called koh kong and during one of the many weeks off we had that year (cambodians love their holidays), she invited us to visit her family. so haley, myself, our friend tak, sinat and her four children piled onto an overcrowded bus and headed to koh kong. the trip itself was an adventure with a few too many cambodians staring at us and talking about ‘barang’ (literally means french but generally means white person…they didn’t realize we could understand them), a few too many strong smells, and a few too few bridges. our vehicle had to drive onto overcrowded boats to cross small lakes, and got stuck in mud a few times along the way. but this story isn’t about the journey there, it’s about being there.

sinat happened to mention that we were the only white people that this little village would have ever seen in person…um…what?? coming from a san diego melting pot, that just sounded a little unreal. we didn’t actually believe it, especially when we got there and everyone said ‘hello’ to us. this little village is slightly floating and the houses are on stilts. the tide goes in and out underneath the wooden homes. everyone who lives here is a fisherman and living here provides easier access to the boats. we soon realized that the only reason people said ‘hello’ to us was because we were white, and white people on television say ‘hello’. in fact, no one there knew any english, and truly hadn’t seen white people in person before. we realized this when we started saying hi back to the kids and they ran away from us, the little ones even cried. if you know me at all you know this is a shock to the system! i am a kid magnet and to have them run away and cry, we must have looked like ghosts!

staying here for a week was a challenge in many ways. besides frightening children, we slept on wood floors, showered with a bucket and a barrel and peed in the hello toilet. the village toilet was literally a hole at the end of a small pier after a precarious walk on uneven wooden planks. think slum dog millionaire except not as nice because there was no door, only a piece of cloth, and the walls only came up about 3 feet. this presented a problem for a long-legged white girl trying to disrobe while squatting and trying not to flash the entire village watching a long-legged white girl try to pee at the end of a pier. the kids warmed up to us from afar and even ventured to say ‘hello’ but at first only when we were popping a squat. needless to say, number twos happened at night while saying a prayer that we wouldn’t twist an ankle on the rickety boards or worse, fall into the shallow mix of sea and waste below.

eventually we got the kids to realize we weren’t spirits from the tv or whatever it was they thought we were. they were really interested in our cameras and we took some photos with them. i’ll always wonder what they really thought. now that it’s been almost 10 years since this has happened, have they seen other white people? do they remember us at all? have they traveled to a big city in their life and seen how most people pee in much more private situations? i may never know…

Tags cambodia, koh kong, small village travel, traveling

reminisce things to do

a word is worth 1000 photos…

Post author By SidebySide Photography
Post date March 26, 2014
No Comments on a word is worth 1000 photos…

in the world of 140 character updates, and overgrams, we are inundated with photos. don’t get me wrong, i’m in the business of capturing memories and preserving them for all time, but i think we’ve lost some of the magic of it. bear with me and hopefully i don’t sound like an old fart 🙂

maybe this is aging me, but do you remember when you used to have to think about a photo before you took it? each picture cost actual money, film, processing and making prints (or doubles if you liked giving them away to friends like i did) and that added up. we were careful, we thought about what we wanted to capture and you only retook a picture if you really wanted to preserve that memory and just in case the first one may not have worked. and even then it was always a gamble! you might have had the camera on the wrong setting, or bought the wrong speed film, or had a light leak, or accidentally exposed the film and when you got all the photos back, they were bad. remember that?? remember that sinking feeling when you just spent $5 hard earned dollars and the photos were black, each one of them!

now we live in a world where nothing is left uncaptured. you have all the time in the world to make sure you get it right. you can find photos or videos of everything and anything. moments aren’t pure anymore. we can’t sit and watch a moment and enjoy it and soak it in. we need to be constantly capturing it. now we grab our phones and get what we can because we can and why? so we can go back and enjoy the moment later? yes, there is value in that, otherwise i wouldn’t be in business or have a passion for it in the first place. but when will we have time to go through all that stuff? i think about the hundreds of photos i have from my film life to the thousands upon thousands i have from my digital life. when would i even have time to revisit all of those moments? why can’t i have one photo to remember a moment, isn’t that enough?

now that i have a daughter i’m especially aware of my phone time, checking instagram, facebook and taking photos and videos of her…she’s laughing, grab the camera, she’s blowing spit bubbles, grab the camera, she’s being cute (ALL THE TIME) grab the camera!!! i am torn between wanting to give her memories in the future (because i have tons of home movies and i am so happy that my mom took the time to do that for us, i love them) and just watching her laugh in person and not from behind a screen.

i love stories, and i love to tell stories, especially through images. sometimes an image or film tells the whole story, and sometimes you need the one photo and the 1000 words. how will i teach my daughter this balancing act? right now on instagram i’m posting a photo a day. most days i only take that one photo a day. it encourages me to think about what i want to post, and think about what i want to take, or not take photos of. i plan on doing yearly videos for kids, and so i’m trying to also be conscious of what i already have. do i need 50 videos of her laughing or just 2. how much do i really want to go through later. it is so tough though because it’s so addicting right now to take photos and videos and look at them all the time. i have to ground myself with the fact that baby girl is 5 months old…FIVE months only!! and i have a gazillion photos already.

i’m taking it down a notch, and trying to be in the moment…and maybe spend some time going through and actually reminiscing about some past moments…

i feel like i always say this, but i really am going to try to blog more…more travel…more projects…and more stories…because if you can’t have time to look through the past photos/videos and reminisce, then what was the point of taking them?

kids people to see reminisce things to do

the best compliment

it was a slow morning, eh who am i kidding, all mornings are slow these days, and i’d been up an hour or so.

the first hour or so of mornings now consist of feeding the baby, changing the baby, playing with the baby, pumping for the baby and making coffee for me! then jared wakes up to join me for breakfast and we have a chance to chat, usually about how many times i was up the night before while he was blissfully asleep 😉

but this one morning in particular, i received the best compliment. i don’t think he even meant to go out of his way or even realized what his words meant in that moment but he said, “you look all disheveled, like a mom, you’re pretty” and then gives me a kiss. my hair having been pulled back all night falling out of the rubber band, no makeup, and before coffee and he gives me the nicest compliment.

it wasn’t that he thought i was pretty in that moment, i mean that is really nice and i appreciate it, but the thing i loved the most about that simple, off the cuff statement was that he said i looked like a mom. i have wanted to be a mom as early as i can remember and even though we had to wait so long for me to have that title, now i’m suddenly a mom of an almost 4 month old! and i LOVE it, can i yell it from the rooftops, I LOVE IT! i prayed for this, my friends and family prayed for this and we’re so happy to finally get to know our little girl and i am going to own looking disheveled, like a MOM, thank you very much!

oceania places to go

Hobbiton, NZ part 2 – ’10

Post author By SidebySide Photography
Post date January 9, 2014
No Comments on Hobbiton, NZ part 2 – ’10

maybe it’s because of our yearly watching of lord of the rings, or maybe it’s because the hobbit part 2 just came out, or maybe it’s because of our little hobbit (because she eats so many meals a day, get it!!!) but i just felt in the mood to share more of our hobbiton visit!

we shared the first part here about how we accidentally got a private tour in the rain 🙂

as i said in the previous blog post, they usually have the holes stripped down like this but they were already dressing the set for filming the hobbit!!! yay for us!!