28 days later (not the movie) we're back from our long road trip. Seeing beautiful places, hanging out with family, revisiting old friends, and eating delicious food along the way was just as you expect it to be -- perfect. And driving in a car for a total of 50 hours was exactly what you expect it to be -- not so fun. Baby Maria did say her first sentence during one of our long driving stretches and it was, "That is MY iPod." Had it not been for our electronic devices (thank you iPad for having a 10 hour battery life!) the 50 hours in the car would have been downright miserable. I know because when the battery on our electronic gadgets died, during one of our long driving stretches, I wanted to die with it. Thankfully we all survived and even enjoyed being in the car (at times) thanks to the beautiful scenery, audio books (Hunger Games Trilogy, Bossy Pants, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, in case you were wondering), movies and games on the iPad for the kids (email me if you really want a list), and our handy dandy 18 year old cousin who was permanently stationed in the back seat so as to get the kids water, food, and break up fights. For the record we did not have Gabriel with us on the last 17 hours of our trip and he was greatly missed by all.
We're now back in Sacramento. Christian just spent hours cleaning the car, high-five Christian! If the car could it would of given him a hug and thanked him, there is only so much filth even a car can take. The kids are in heaven because great-grandma Mimi and Aunt Karen make their home heavenly with their generous spirits and endless supply of fun toys, books, and popsicles. I'm also in heaven because after almost a month of traveling I finally get to sit down relax and edit pictures and even write a decent post, oh my.
As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program with Kodak Gallery I was asked if I wanted to create a photo book of my road trip so I could try out Kodak Gallery, a free online service that lets you share, create, and save all in one place.
Either Kodak Gallery is really exceptional or a lot has changed in the photo book making world. Last time I made one of these, on a different site, it was downright painful. It took me hours and would not let me resize the pictures the way I wanted to. Have you ever made a photo book before? I would love to hear what your experience was like and what service you used. I wonder if you had the same troubles I did. Luckily with Kodak Gallery it was easy and actually enjoyable. I simply uploaded the pictures (which took less than 2 minutes) and it organized it in a book instantaneously.
There were a couple pictures I wanted to change, a couple layouts I wanted to play with, and it was all really easy to do.
I love Instagram and wanted to use those pictures too. I decided to do a collage with my Instagram shots and make that the cover of the book. The book should arrive any day next week. I can't wait to see what it actually looks like.
In the next couple of weeks I'll do a series of posts about my trip. In the meantime here is an album I created on Kodak Gallery that has the pictures I used for my photo book you can also see it on my Facebook album. Here are pictures from Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Northern California, beautiful places we were blessed to visit. Here are pictures of people I love dearly and am blessed to have in my life. Looking back there are many people and many events I ended up not getting a picture of. It's hard to documente everything specially when you're trying to be in the moment instead of obsessively being behind a camera the whole time. Those of you whom we did see on our trip, whether you're on our photo book or not, thank you for making the whole thing so memorable. And thank you Foodbuzz and Kodak for giving me the opportunity to get my pictures off the computer and onto something my kids will enjoy looking at. It will be treasured!
As for you my readers thank you for being patient with my lack of posts. I know you understand. I hope you are enjoying your Summer just as much as I'm enjoying mine. To show my gratitude I have a gift for you that I hope you can enjoy. This link will get you 40% off on a Medium or Large Hard Cover Photo Book so you too can document your Summer .
See you soon.
xoxo
Da
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