San Francisco

30 May 2013•Devyn, Nathan, Places, Travel

Chris and Melanie at the Marin Headlands.

Getting out of Dodge

For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to get out of Santa Barbara for a few days. So we packed up the kids and the car and drove 5 hours north to San Francisco! We were fortunate enough to be able to visit with our very good friend Melanie, who was gracious enough to let us stay with her family for a couple of nights and to serve as tour guide!

Marin Headlands

I just sold my 4 year old Canon 5D Mk II camera and picked up a new Canon 6D so I was really looking forward to getting some shots of the Golden Gate Bridge. I really wanted to shoot it from Kirby Cove. But was too much of a hike for the kids we had in tow.

Instead, we were able to find a parking spot up at the top of the Marin Headlands (Hawk Hill?) and that is where I took the photo above of Chris and Melanie. I have a couple of other photos, but I’m not entirely excited about them. Maybe I’ll post those later. We did walk through one of the tunnels on the hill though and we were treated to this beautiful view. I’m sure this road has been in a zillion car commercials.

View from the backside of the Marin Headlands.

Dinner with Friends

After hitting the Golden Gate bridge and driving down Lombard Street, we headed back out towards the suburbs and went to Walnut Grove for dinner. Here are some pictures from dinner.

Devyn and Macy.

Eli.

Macy.

Day 2

On our second day, we spent the early afternoon on Alcatraz Island where the kids had a lot of fun exploring. Actually, we all had a really good time! I’d highly recommend going and doing the guided audio tour. It’s included in the price of admission and it was very informative. After Alcatraz, we were able to meet up with Chris’ step-sister Inger and her mom Signa and Inger’s two kids. After hitting Ben & Jerry’s for some ice cream, we went up to Coit Tower and then out to dinner.

Quick note if you go up to the top of Coit Tower, it’s a long line and crowded elevator ride to get to the top. Once there, it can be tricky getting a photo because they have very reflective plexiglass installed for safety. I like this picture of the tower at night and from the ground.

Coit Tower at night.

Here’s a family shot taken around 9pm. I used a trick I learned from Joe McNally to light this. Rather than pointing the flash at everybody directly, I crouched down in front of a white garage door, turned the flash so it pointed at the door and then took the picture. The light reflects off of the garage and provides a much nicer source of light for the group photo. Try it sometime!

On a side note, this photo was taken after an utterly amazing and fantastic dinner at Original U.S. Restaurant. I had no idea how good or bad it would be going in. It was packed with customers which is always a good sign, but the food was beyond what I had expected. Get the Ravioli with Bolognese sauce. You won’t be disappointed.

The whole gang!

Day 3

For our last day in San Francisco, we wanted to take the kids on the Cable Cars. We tried to outsmart everybody by catching the trolly up a few stops from the start of the line, but we went too far and each car was too full. So we went back down to the beginning of the line and the line there was 45 minutes. So…we walked up 2 blocks and got on the next car no problem!

Devyn sees the next Cable Car coming!

Nathan waiting patiently for the next Cable Car.

Kids on the Cable Car!

Wrapping Up

We wrapped up the day down at the end of the Cable Car line in Fisherman’s Wharf and swung by Ghirardelli Square. Honestly, I wasn’t all that impressed with Ghiradelli Square. I can say I’ve been there, but I can say that I won’t be rushing to go back. Maybe if we were going to hit the Maritime Museum, but otherwise, I don’t think so.

All and all, it was a great trip. Great seeing family and friends!

Nathan in uniform

19 May 2013•Nathan, People

Nathan in Boy Scout uniform for the April Court of Honor.

all smiles

19 May 2013•Devyn, Nathan, People

Big smile from Devyn upon seeing Nathan with a pixelated mustache.

Nathan posing and making Devyn laugh.

Shopping

11 May 2013•Devyn, Nathan, People, Photography

The kids waiting patiently.

Just going through some pictures from Spring Break and found this one.

Disneyland in February

25 Feb 2013•Devyn, Nathan, People, Places, Travel

Radiator Springs ride in the new Cars Land. © Mike Wong

As I mentioned in my last post, it was time for us to get out of Dodge and have some fun. So off to Disneyland! One of the things we wanted to see was the new Cars Land attraction and we were not disappointed. The kids absolutely loved the Radiator Springs ride and they said it was their favorite ride at either California Adventure or Disneyland!

The kids on the Tow Mater ride. © Mike Wong

The Tow Mater ride looked harmless, but it was actually a bit rough. The cart that you ride in the back whips you around pretty hard. Chris and I were smashing into each other the entire time while we laughed and then tried to catch our breath. I was holding my new GoPro HD Hero 3 camera filming the event and just as I turned it off, we got whipped around and the camera flew from my hands. Luckily though, the case was on it and it came out unharmed.

Details

Like everything at Disneyland, it’s amazing at the level of detail that the artists at Disney put into every aspect of the park. Here are some of the details that I really enjoyed while waiting for the Tow Mater ride.

A great El Materdor poster. © Mike Wong

Amazing detail in this license plate that I bet most people never notice. © Mike Wong

Another license plate. Love the detail. © Mike Wong

Portraits of the kids

In between all of the running around, I was able to grab a couple of nice portraits of the kids.

Portrait of Nathan. © Mike Wong

Portrait of Devyn. © Mike Wong

Twilight at California Adventure

We walked back and forth between California Adventure and Disneyland about 5 times. According to my Nike+ Fuel Band, we walked over 20,000 steps. I don’t know exactly how many because somewhere just past 20,000, the battery died! But needless to say, we were exhausted. On our last trip back over to California Adventure for dinner and a ride on the big ferris wheel, we stopped at the Grizzly River Run to take a look at one of our favorite rides that was under renovation. Nathan loved seeing the infrastructure of the ride as the water was drained. The light was beautiful as the sun went down and I grabbed this shot of one of the main buildings that make up the Grizzly River Run.

Golden hour hits the Grizzly River Run ride. © Mike Wong

You press this button to take the picture

After I took this, I had Chris and the kids get lined up for a quick family photo (minus me of course) when a nice passerby offered to take our picture. I said “sure, that would be great!” As I handed her the camera, I showed her that if she pressed halfway on the shutter release it would focus and then after the beep, to press the button. I had already dialed in the shutter and aperture settings manually. All she had to do was prefocus and then shoot. I almost didn’t tell her because you never know how much experience someone has shooting, but I did.

Even though I gave her that info and she said “okay”, she still didn’t do it. And because it was getting dark and my screen is only so big, I couldn’t really tell that she did not in fact follow the simple instructions and she just pressed the shutter release without any focusing at all. I suppose I could partially, or fully, blame my camera which is going on 6 years old now and it’s ancient auto-focus system, but I’m going to put some of the responsibility on the unnamed photographer. 🙂

So we have another nice family portrait that is out of focus. Oh well. A quick run through Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 and we turn that out-of-focus color image into a lovely black and white image.

The Wong family. Friendly photographer unknown. Edits by Mike Wong

Do you see what I see?

I thought this was funny.

Reminds me of the Ted and Fred Road Trip book by Dr. Seuss. © Mike Wong

Last photo of the night

Finally as the night was winding down, Nathan stopped to grab a photo of the signature ferris wheel at California Adventure. I love getting candid photos of the kids when they’re not looking. This will go down as one of my favorites.

Hollywood Stars

24 Feb 2013•Devyn, Nathan, People, Places

Nathan and Devyn at the Griffith Observatory. © Mike Wong 2013

All work and no fun

We’ve been in California now for a little while and haven’t been out of our immediate area much. Weekends have been spent doing the necessary business of unpacking and getting things sorted out in our new (rental) home. Needless to say, this hasn’t been much fun for the kids. They’ve made the best of it though by running around in the backyard and by playing games or watching movies. But not the kinds of things we would necessarily choose to do all things being equal.

Here comes the fun

But not this weekend. We decided it was time to get out and have some fun. The kids got out of school early on Thursday (actually, every Thursday is early release) so Chris and kids picked me up from work around 2:30 and we hit the 101-South heading straight for Disneyland! We thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of one of the benefits of living in Southern California. But before getting to the Magic Kingdom, we all got to experience first-hand the traffic that is LA.

Wow. Being from Oregon, we’ve never really experienced anything like this. Five lanes in each direction. Completely packed. It took us an hour to go about 6 miles. But in the end, there were no accidents and we arrived in Anaheim early enough so we could grab a bite to eat and still hit a few rides at Disneyland that evening. I’ve got more pictures coming of Disneyland soon, so stay tuned!

“That sign isn’t as big as it looks”

One of the things that Devyn has been asking about lately is to see the Hollywood sign. So I quickly Googled where to take a picture of the Hollywood sign and we came up with the Griffith Observatory. Little did we know just how popular this place gets, but let me tell you…it gets crowded up there fast. We had to walk 3/4 of a mile to get back up there as parking is extremely limited. But it was totally worth it.

I think the kids were excited to actually see the Hollywood sign, but at the same time, they were a little disappointed. “It’s a lot smaller than I thought it would be” was heard several times–and not just from our kids. 🙂

Nathan at Griffith Observatory. © Mike Wong

But the kids each took pictures of it with their iOS devices and I snapped a few myself. Overall, the 2 hour visit to the Griffith Observatory was totally worth it and I highly recommend it. If nothing else, you can see a fully functional Tesla Coil in action once per hour! Highly recommended.

Nathan and Devyn posing in front of the Griffith Observatory sign. © Mike Wong

This place is big. No, make that huge.

In the past 6 weeks that we’ve been in California, we’ve spent all of our time in the Santa Barbara area. In our first trip to the Los Angeles area, it really struck me at just how big LA is. Coming from Portland where the most traffic we see is a three lane highway that moderately filled, seeing five lanes in both directions COMPLETELY PACKED is a bit of a shock. The traffic is absolutely insane. I couldn’t imagine driving in that traffic every day.

From the Griffith Observatory, you have an incredible view of Los Angeles. This is only one section of the city, but if you’re not from LA, it gives you an idea of just how big this place is. No, make that how huge this place is.

Los Angeles city skyline in blue. © Mike Wong