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05.17.2013

Vancouver Mom Top 30 Blogger

Every once in a while, I get an exciting, interesting out-of-the-blue email. And yesterday was no exception.

I came home to an email from VancouverMom.ca notifying me that I had been nominated in their Vancouver Mom Ultimate Blogger contest. And that I somehow made it into the top 30. My immediate reaction was, What? MY blog? My little space on the interwebs? And then my second thought was, So maybe people really DO read my blog after all!

I emailed one of the bloggers at Vancouver Mom just to make sure that they didn’t make a mistake but sure enough, it was legit. And now I am starting to sweat because I need to write a profile for myself that will be featured on their site. There is nothing that makes me more nervous than being asked to write a blurb about my business or myself – where do I start? What do I say? I am cheesy by nature and for some reason, whenever I am asked to do this, all the cheese just starts showing up out of nowhere. Anyone out there want to help me? *Asking in a small child-like voice*

At any rate, I can say that I am greatly flattered and humbled and very excited to be attending a Vancouver Mom Ultimate Blogger shindig at an undisclosed location in Gastown in June. In the meantime, the profile will be posted to VancouverMom.ca from May 20-24 and then there will be an open vote from May 27- June 7 for the TOP blogger. I am giving you fair warning because I will be soliciting votes from you at the end of May =) The grand prize is pretty swank - it’s a two night stay at the Painted Boat Resort Spa & Marina, an iPad Mini and a year’s worth of Purdy’s chocolates.

And to whomever nominated me, THANK YOU. You are so very sweet to have taken the time to do this and I am so appreciative of it. I would really love to know who it is so I can thank them properly (but this is also partly because I can be kind of a nosy-pants), but you don’t have to come forward if you don’t want to. No pressure. Unless I win the grand prize and then I would have no one to share my chocolates with. And that would be very sad.

Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy your long weekend!

 

 

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Amber @ VancouverMom.ca - We’re so excited to have you!

On the bio, I totally understand your anxiety. It’s hard for all of us, especially at first.

And finally, on the location - the name of the venue is actually Secret Location. It’s confusing, right? When I was talking to our publisher she kept saying we were going to Secret Location, and I was like, “Can’t you tell me where? I work for you! I won’t give it away!” It took me a while to understand.

I’m thrilled to have you on this year’s list, and I look forward to meeting you on June 19.

05.09.2023

Erin :: Portraits

I had never walked up to a complete stranger before and ask them if I could take their picture.

But that’s how I met Erin.

I was at Granville Island one morning and she was singing and playing the ukelele for passersby and I thought to myself, “I’d like to photograph that girl. She’s got mad style.” I paused a moment nearby and began to talk myself out of it.

“I can’t do that, she’ll think I’m weird and creepy.”

I continued on, only to do a loop around some shops and came back, mustering up the courage to talk to her. I felt ridiculous. Almost like asking someone out for the first time. Would she say yes? Would she say no? Would she look at me and tell me I’m weird and creepy? And before I knew it, my feet were walking me over to her.

I’m really glad I did it.

We hung out for a few hours one sunny morning. Chatted. Laughed. I got to hear a bit about her story of where she came from and how she ended up in Vancouver. I think I did more talking than shooting. And that’s OK.

Introducing to you…..Erin.

 

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damara - Love these images, Rose! Her personality shines…love them all.

Annie Hughes - Hi, Rose.

What a great post Mothers’ Day treat to see your photos of Erin!

You have truly captured her beauty, sparkle, and style. She’s always had so much style. She she was just a toddler, she fashioned a headband for herself out of dryer sheets!

Thank you so much!

Erin’s Mommy,

Annie Hughes

Salma - I love the fact that you asked a stranger if you could take pictures because you were just pulled to her! And beautiful pictures as I browse your blog.

05.06.2023

Samantha and Justin :: Granville Island Engagement Session

When I had asked Samantha and Justin where they would like to go for their engagement session, they told me they often hang out at the arcade in the Kid’s Only Market at Granville Island. After I heard this, I thought to myself, “Arcade? At the Kid’s Only Market?” And sure enough on my scouting mission, I did indeed find an arcade on the upper level. Even though we didn’t get up to the arcade, we still did visit Granville Island on a glorious weekday evening. We cruised about, chased the light, laughed a lot and I had a generally fantastic time getting to know them a bit better. Samantha even brought along an heirloom pocket watch that belonged to her grandfather, then her grandmother and now her, which made for a beautiful necklace. I always really appreciate the little details like this and I think it’s meaningful to take a bit of time to get some beautiful images of pieces that have some historical and/or sentimental importance. So thank you for bringing this along, Sam!

These two have hearts of gold and I am really looking forward to seeing them again for their September wedding.

Enjoy!

 

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Rozalind - What an incredible ring!!! Beautiful shots Rose!

05.05.2023

Turning 35

I woke up this morning as I would any other regular Saturday morning. I lie in bed and recount my son’s morning ritual of letting the cat out the front door, then the slam, lock and pitter patter of feet to our bedroom door. He stands there a moment silently, somewhat creepily, before he says, “Mommy, wake up.”

So I get up, let my husband to sleep in a bit, and get ourselves ready for the day. Socks. Underwear. Pants. Shirt. Vitamins. In that order.

It didn’t hit me until I remembered it was breakfast time that it was my birthday today. Birthdays seem like such non-events after 25. That was 10 years ago now so I’ve had 10 years of “Oh, it’s my birthday, I almost forgot.” Thank goodness for Facebook reminding me the past 5 years, otherwise I’m not sure I’d remember at all.

I was rather bummed that my husband wasn’t going to be around today. He’s been working on a really big van project and today was the day to complete a good portion of it. It’s just how the timing worked out of everything. And add the beautiful weather didn’t help matters - the possibilities of outdoors activities were endless, so Fin and I went to the beach. Taking a toddler to the beach, I was expecting to be building sand castles and push sand around all afternoon with his bulldozer, but surprisingly, Fin played by himself for over an hour. Happy as a clam with a pink bucket full of cool saltwater, a Tupperware container for a scoop and a few trucks from home. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. I watched him for a while until my mind would wander into this place of just seeing what was around me. Not in terms of framing objects for a photograph, which is how I often think these days, but just seeing the endless blue around me and getting lost in it. Things were starting to blend together into a peaceful harmony - sounds, the warm wind, the sky, the sea, the mountains, people enjoying themselves around me. I very, very rarely take a moment like this. It’s not in my nature to do so, especially now with so much on my plate. But it was nice to pause and not think about anything, really. Which is another thing I very rarely get to do. We did make some sand castles together and I buried his legs in sand, which he found incredibly funny. We watched the kitesurfers zip across the water and blew bubbles that zoomed off with the wind. And before we knew it, it was time to go.

The rest of the day was the usual run-around - grocery shopping, waiting in too-long lineups, frantically making supper in a much too small kitchen, bath time for Fin. I was thinking about cleaning up the kitchen from the wreckage of making dinner when Fin was sitting in my lap, squeaky clean after his bath. He was obviously tired and laid his head against me. I was speaking to my mother at the moment when he started to say something but I didn’t quite hear it.

“What was that, bear?” I asked him.

Not moving from me, he repeated in a quiet, tired voice, “Happy birthday, Mummy.”

I hugged him close and felt few tears form behind my eyes. And then I realized I got the best birthday present ever today - spending a beautiful sunny afternoon with my son at the beach which made me forget about all the other stuff for a while. That was the best gift of all.

 

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jennifer armstrong - happy birthday, friend! And so great to hear you got such a lovely day, the perfect gift, from your beautiful boy. We missed you this weekend! Big hugs to you, xoxo jennifer

04.20.2013

Oregon Road Trip

Back in March, we did a 5 day trip through Washington and Oregon to visit friends and the coast. This is a smattering of what we did and saw….

Our friends got Fin a super awesome gift for his birthday - a reversible train puzzle created by graphic artist Marc Boutavant. Fin had just received it that afternoon so he had good fun putting it together at our friend’s place in Eatonville, WA.

On the road. We broke our trip up into manageable driving chunks so Fin wouldn’t be cooped up for too long. The longest stretch was 7 hours of driving on the last day and he took it like a champ.

Next stop…..food cart city! I’ve been wanting to see this for a while and in my research, there were more food cart “pods” is what they are called in Portland, than you can shake a stick at. One website said that Portland has about 500 food trucks at any given time. Crazy! We ended up at SW 10th and SW Alder, right downtown. Food carts covered approximately 5 city blocks, around a parking lot. It took WAY too long to figure out what to eat - there was all sorts of stuff, talk about ethnic fusion! I landed on a pulled pork sandwich while Josh had soup. If you go to Portland, the food cart culture is certainly something to behold and a model I really hope Vancouver embraces more of.

With the few hours we had left in Portland, we decided to go to the Oregon Zoo. We thought that it would be a nice departure for Fin, break it up a bit and be a fun family activity. I’m not the biggest advocate for zoos by any means and the further we went along, the sadder I became - especially for the larger game animals in small enclosures. It was interesting however, to see such creatures, but I would by far rather see them in their natural habitat that in an artificial one. The bats and alligators were the highlights of the day.

We have friends that live just outside of Portland in a beautiful heritage university town called Newburg. We stayed with them for one night and caught up on life while our kids played together with cars, books, colouring and puzzles. By the end of the trip, the kids had really warmed up to each other a lot and became good buddies. I shot Phil and Clare’s wedding in New York state a number of years ago when I was pregnant with Fin and now our kids are playing together.

And, to the coast. Here we stayed in Tillamook with the parents of some friends and had a great visit with them. As soon as we reached the coast, we headed to Cape Lookout State Park where Fin got his first taste of big ocean (well, the first time he did, he was only about 8 months old, so this was really different!). He loved being able to ride his bike on the beach, how novel! And I, of course, got my big ocean fix as well.

Off to Astoria, WA. The plan was to spend a bit of time poking around here…..I have always had a strange curiosity about this place. Maybe it has something to do with the Goonies, maybe it has something to do with the ghost-town like quality of this heritage city but Fin was sleeping so we didn’t get the chance to explore. One day!

Off to Long Beach, WA for the last night. This was another place that I had always heard about as well but never quite made it to until this trip. Our time there was far too short and will require a much longer visit next time - what a beautiful place. Don’t even get me started on the elevated boardwalk and paved bike paths through the grassy dunes. I have never seen anything more perfect. There wasn’t much time to explore the beach but this stretch is popular for beach-driving, which seems so weird to me. Cars? On the sand? But it does work! There are parks galore here as well. This is one place I would love to come back to for a few extra days.

I never tire of this trip and I have done this route numerous times in my past. It’s wonderful to come and visit friends and at the same time, sample some of the coast’s finest beaches.

Oregon, I love you. If I could have it my way, I would most certainly call you home.

Happy weekend!

 

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Jarusha - AWESOME shots! Love all the ones of Fin at the beach :)

Denise - Absolutely beautiful pictures Rose!