Matilda’s home! (Phew…)

After barely a week of being apart it was a relief to welcome back Matilda. Juggling work, raising children and homemaking really is an art that I’m far from mastering. Not that the children have misbehaved – quite the opposite – the’ve been really, really good. But without the steadfast guide of a mothers gentle influence we’ve experienced more than a little chaos, including daddy’s struggles with:

Diapers:

 

Laundry:

Exhaustion:

Children who have very strong opinions on how to dress (already, daddy doesn’t understand what’s the right style…):

We’ve had some bright moments, like:

Fun play with cousins:

Homemaking:

And finally – my favorite – snuggling with Gustav in the evenings:

But right now, I’m just happy to have my Matilda back. She left with a mini-bag and returned with three big bags stuffed with “goodies”. Thank you Angelica, Marie and Pernilla for making this possible – soon it’s time to start planning for a re-do… (then maybe the daddys left behind can plan a get-together)? Or, let’s all go!

I better stop now before I get too carried away…

Single parent (for a few days…)

Today we dropped Matilda off for her trip to New York. She’s been busy planning the trip with her friends Angelica, Marie and Pernilla. During the last week there’s been quite a bit of anticipation building up among them.

I’ve never seen anyone pack so little for a week-long trip across the atlantic. I think the luggage will be somewhat different coming home…

Here’s a final snapshot through the car window as she was walking away. There’s no mistaking that she’s pretty excited about the trip and spending time with good friends…

So now it’s me and the kids for a few days. We look forward to some nice weather and perhaps some cleaning up in the new garden. We stopped by there later in the afternoon and picked some apples. They are ripe and I’ve never sen the kids so excited about fruit before. At least not since a few days ago when they came home after picking some mushroom which Matilda used to make a really good sauce. I think getting your food from some other place than the supermarked does add another dimension to your enjoyment.

Finally, during the evening, we were able to catch dad at home. Today was his birthday, and the kids were bubbling with excitement… They had made some choclate-chip cookies specially for grand-pa. We had a nice visit, and managed to get mom and dad to “ourselves” for a few hours. Happy birthday father – we love you!

New camera lens

I had previously decided to treat myself with a new lens once the house was sold. I’ve been debating between three lenses: the Nikon 85/1.4, the Nikon 14-24/2.8 and the Nikon 70-200/2.8 VR. Finally, I decided to go for the 85/1.4 (which incidentally is the cheapest of the three) . The optical quality is supposed to be outstanding with both sharpness and smooth rendition of out-of-focus areas.

The wide-angle zoom is also tempting, but I see myself using a short tele alot more than an extreme wide angle. I love the 70-200 (which I borrow from my father from time to time), but I have the range covered in my 18-200 lens, and the size of the lens would keep me from bringing it along at many occasions.

The original plan was to have Matilda buy it during her upcoming trip to the US, but earlier this week I found a (very) slightly used, three-week old lens in mint condition at a price that even bhphoto couldn’t beat.

To get aquainted with the new lens I mounted it and decided to shoot with nothing else this week-end. Here are some examples:

Top pictures are from our new garden (which needs quite a bit of work ). Bottom picture shows our good neighbor Birgit that we’ll miss sorely when we move. Clicking the images will take you to flickr were you can inspect them in full resolution.

So far I love the lens. All the praise you read about it on the internet is true – my only (minor) complaints are lack of AF-S and VR, and slight chromatic aberration in high-contrast areas…

Video tips

Found this cool website the other day. It’s a collection of short talks by prominent people from many different areas an walks of life.

For instance, check out David Griffen, photo editor of National Geographic talk on how photography connects us together:

Also check out the “most favorited list” and gain new insights on world economic statistics, listen to a brain scientist explain what its like to have a stroke, or you can see some cool photage of amazing underwater creatures…

(Due to technical limitations of my WordPress blog, I cannot imbed flash videos. Please try the links to view the videos)