Unpacking…Processing Vacation Photos

So glad I did many loads of laundry our last day of vacation.  We were resting off sunburns anyway…we watched the reports of Michael Jackson, comparing the events to those of Elvis, which they had no memory of!

The drive home wasn’t as bad as we feared, the kids are old enough to entertain themselves.  One Mommy Lesson learned:  don’t trust new little gamers to know to pack their own recharger cords!  We never had that problem with our older son, he ALWAYS has plans for recharging his various electronics.  We tried to buy one at Wal*Mart and managed to get the wrong cord.  Ugh.  Apple has a way of added one tiny indiscriminate sticker to tell you this product doesn’t work for your product.

The kids are behind me right now laughing at the making of Prince Caspian movie…it’s funny to hear their analysis.  Someone just said a scene was like Batman special effects!  I would have never compared Batman to Prince Caspian!

We just finished a karaoke night with Disney on my daughter’s new PSII game we found at an upscale Goodwill, packaged new, while in Destin.  It’s a lot of fun and she was even enjoying the vocal exercises on it.  I’m not totally thrilled about all the early lovey messages of the Disney pop-love songs, but they are well sung, and often sung at birthday party Karaoke’s my daughter goes to right now.  Good to have the kids be able to learn to sing songs that are challenging for them in a safe environment.  They just don’t sing as much as I did when I was a kid.  That’s when to learn!

It’s 11:30.  I took today to process vacation photos to go on my husband’s digital frame at work, then another hour and half trying to figure out why they wouldn’t load to his Kodak SD card!

SOLUTION FOR LOADING PHOTOS TO KODAK SD CARD:   I finally got it to accept .jpgs by reformatting the Kodak SD card (moving photos to my hard drive first that were there–he wanted to keep them on there), then creating one folder for all the old and new photos.  The forum recommended to try the “FAT 32″ file structure rather than the standard “FAT”, not sure why…we’ll see if his frame recognizes that.  The advice on a forum I visited said most new frame recognize the 32 version and it’s preferrable for whatever reason to techies who know what they are doing (that would not be me in this case).  It makes me happy that he was so excited to have new photos.

I practiced using some of my free Coffeeshop filters (just do a search)…some worked better than others.  I want to redo a few of them that processed with too intense a color, but I’m totally thrilled with what they could do to fix poor lighting!  Light comes and goes fast in that “ideal” non-squint zone!  With cranky kids, half an hour is NOT a lot of light!

Please do not notice that even though my son is downhill, he is STILL looking taller than me!  Good grief!

This was a good example of a PSE 5.0 filter fix.  After sunset, the light wasn’t so great,  a flash would have hidden the waves behind us.  So, this was taken with NO flash so that I could rescue it later with light.  The Coffeeshop “Coffee with Latte” is one I used a LOT for ocean photos, especially ones of my youngest playing in the sand like the next one.  It seemed great for little ones at play especially…

Oh, if that doesn’t make a Mom’s ovaries tinge a little, I’m not sure what does.  (No more kids…nope, not in the plans for this Mom.)

I’m so glad we FINALLY got to the beach before my kids were too old for just a few of these kinds of shots!  Oh, how I wish I had them of ALL my kids.

A word of caution…let me just say that it wasn’t a popular family activity even with simple white tees and khaki shorts!  All the photos I’ve ever seen make it look so fun and natural, and if you’ve been training your kids for beach photos for a few years, perhaps it would be.  Mine were not thrilled.  Older kids used to entertainment, sand ants, and sand in general…and sun in eyes.  All I can say is, stick it out.  It’s worth it!

For family photos, we set the timer.  We actually got our very best shots that way, but sometimes a passer-by would ask to help and we always took them up on it.  Very nice people in Destin…in the South in general.  Everyone was all manners and gentility.  The best beach vacation in that regard I’ve ever had.

This was a photo we took by timer on the dunes (which said to “keep out by order of the law”.  Not sure why…or what the function of these fences are…to catch sand in storms?  Anyone know?  What’s a dune, anyway?  Why is it unsafe?  Shifting sand?  Air pockets?  I’m just guessing…seemed safe enough for a few moments.)

My daughter and I were not impressed with the condition of our beach hair, but I forgot my curling iron–it just really didn’t matter all week.  If you can’t have beach hair, you just don’t need to be at the beach!  I had to have someone check the house to be sure I’d unplugged it before we left.

I’m sure I’ll be boring you with beach photos for some time as I have time to post.  They will be my favs for a while I’m sure!  Time for bed.  I’m tired!