How We'll Remember 2013 | Artifact Uprising Photo Books

Matt and I finally got smartphones in 2013. Late to the game, I know.
We started documenting the everyday moments of our lives with our phones, and often using Instagram to share those little moments with the world.
In January, I decided to try something new with all of the photos we collected during 2013. 
I heard of an intriguing company through Instagram called Artifact Uprising. Their motto is: Off Your Device. Into Your Life.
Exactly what I was looking to do with our photos! 
They are a really neat company. They are based in Colorado and use 100% recycled paper for the pages of their books. They are very progressive and eco-friendly, and are helping bring something tangible into a world where everything is digital.
The software to make the book was pretty simple to use. The only trouble I had was when I tried to rearrange the pages of the book into a different order than I had originally created them in. I think AU is working on making that process easier.
This is their Instagram Friendly Photo Book, and is 8.5x8.5 inches in size. The default is 40 pages, but I think I made ours 73 pages. Remember, in the left photo below, when Remy fell asleep hanging over the edge of her favorite pillow? Hilarious! Look at how TINY she was in the right photo below!!?! Just a teeny baby back then! I am so happy with our book, and love flipping through it to look back on 2013. 
I plan to make this a new tradition, and make one every year.

Happy Valentine's Day from the Radniecki's!

Matt, Remy and I was to wish all of you a very Happy Valentine's Day today!

May you and the ones you love make some special memories today. 

And let's also remember that this endless chill and sea of white outside won't last forever! Days like this, and the sea of green WILL return!

Christmas Vacation - Radniecki Style! | Tampa, Florida Photography

Before this year, all but two of my Christmases have been spent in Minnesota. 
One year, when I was maybe 10 or 11, my family went to Florida and Disney World for Christmas. 
And in 2006, I spent Christmas in Hawaii with Matt and his family.
The rest of my Christmases have been spent at home.
This year, because Erica and Tony moved to Florida at the end of the summer, we all decided to head south for the holidays to celebrate together.
It couldn't have been better timing as the frigid winter weather descended upon Minnesota with a vengeance. Going from 0 degree weather to 80 degrees in a span of 4 hours is such a weird concept. Air travel blows my mind sometimes.
It was so fun to visit St. Pete's and the areas that Erica and Tony now call home. I have been to Florida dozens of times over the years with all of our spring break trips to visit my grandparents, but I don't know that I'd ever been to the Tampa area before.
We walked and explored the beaches, looking for shells, sand dollars and sharks teeth. We visited the clinic that Erica and Tony will open their chiropractic clinic in, ate out at different restaurants, visited my aunt and uncle in central Florida and went on a fun airboat ride. But mostly, we spent quality time together.  On one of the beaches, we came across a crab trap that was washed up onto shore. There were two crabs inside, so we freed them.
But not before Matt tested their aggressiveness and made them fight each other. We went and visited one of Tony and Erica's favorite spots - a neat pier with great shops and restaurants, and amazing dolphin sightings!
It's so crazy to me to think that these are wild dolphins, and that people see them daily in Florida! The dolphin in the photo below has a split fit. You can see it's different than the rest of them. I am not sure why. We had a delicious Christmas dinner compliments of the chef - Tony! 
We also went to a stunningly beautiful Christmas Eve mass at their church. The singing was so phenomenal, it moved me literally to tears. The perfect worship for Christmas. On Christmas Day, we explored another beach, looking for sand dollars. Matt decided to swim in the ocean. For 9.3 seconds. We watched the sun set over the ocean that evening as a family. In lieu of buying Christmas gifts for each other this year, we decided to all do something together when we were in Florida instead.
We booked an airboat ride through Alligators Unlimited Airboat Nature Tours in central Florida. 
Mom, Dad and I had been on an airboat once before on our 2011 Florida trip, but the the rest of the group hadn't been on one before.
I LOVE airboat rides!
I'm very used to being in a boat on our Minnesota lakes, but an airboat is so different. It's got a car or other large machine engine blowing a huge fan on the back of the boat, and it can go over water OR land. 
The first time I was ever on one, we were cruising down the river. Then the driver turned toward land and revved the engine. I about had a heart attack as the land quickly approached. But we just went right up and over it, onto the river on the other side! It was wild!
Our tour explored the beginning of the Florida Everglades - sections of river and marsh that can only be accessed by airboat. Untouched wilderness that most tourists don't get to see. I love cypress trees, and think it's so cool how they can grow up out of the water like they do.
I also have an obsession with spanish moss hanging from the trees. I am sure people who live in the south where this is common don't even notice it. But I can't help it - I don't know why it strikes me as so fascinating, but I just adore it!
We came across a Water Moccasin, one of the most poisonous snakes in Florida. It is one of the only snakes that will aggressively try to attack you if you make it mad. 
Our tour guide poked it with a stick so needless to say, it was a little angry! There were free range cows all over the shores of where we toured. Apparently these are free range, completely grass fed cows that aren't bothered with, but are instead left to live on their own in these areas. The ranchers come once a year to collect some of them to bring them to harvest, and the rest stay out there to live.
In today's world where grass fed beef is so popular and everyone is trying to get organic everything, this is about as close to totally natural as it could get!
Our guide laughed because we were so excited to see these cows. He said "It's like you've never seen a cow before!" I think it's just that we didn't expect to see dozens of cows on our rural airboat tour. 
The cows seemed a little wary of us. This pink bird is of an extremely rare species. 
The guide said at one point, they escaped from Cypress Gardens, one of the old theme parks/zoos in a nearby city and since then, have been populating in the wild. But there are not many around, and he said it was super awesome that we were able to see not only one [pictured below] but two! The other is off to the right a little, further away. The airboat stopped and the guide threw some cheesy crackers out to these sandhill cranes and this bird. I think it's maybe a relative of a falcon or something like that. They knew treats were coming - they came racing up to the boat. The weather wasn't too hot during our tour - maybe upper 60's? The alligators like it hot and so we weren't having much luck seeing many gators. I think we were all thinking maybe we wouldn't see any, which would have been disappointing.
Then, we turned a corner and this was lying on the edge of the river.
The guide said it was 15 feet long. 
FIFTEEN FEET!!!
We were maybe 7 or 8 feet from it as we quietly floated past. 
Alligators are really fascinating. They truly do look prehistoric, like a dinosaur up close. 
They also are quite terrifying if you ask me. If you find yourself in central Florida, I highly recommend the Alligators Unlimited Airboat Nature Tour company. 
We had so much fun and were amazed at how knowledgeable our guide was. He is a 3rd or 4th generation airboat tour guide, and has lived on the everglades his whole life, so he was the perfect guide.
The next day, we headed south to Sarasota, to see Erica and Tony's clinic space.
We visited Siesta Key on the way - a favorite beach of many in the southwestern parts of Florida. My dad was excited to try a little fishing on our trip. 
Fishing in Florida is a lot different than the type of fishing we're used to though. You use different bait [mini crabs in this case!] and catch different types of fish.
He did catch a few though, so he was happy! The trip passed too fast. Soon, it was over and we were headed back to subzero weather. We got into Minnesota in a snowstorm and battled horrid traffic to get home. We've been missing the Florida weather every day since! 
This was the last time we would all be together as the 6 of us, because Tony and Erica will be adding a little addition to their family in May! So, it was a precious time for all of us, right before lots of major changes happen all around.
I am thankful we were able to make this trip happen.
Until next time, Florida! See you soon!

Remy Turns One! | Happy Birthday, Remy!

On January 21st, our little Remy girl turned One Year Old!
Because let's be honest, she is our baby, we decided to commemorate her birthday with not only a joint party with my dad, but some birthday photos!
Doesn't she look thrilled? We love you so much, Remy! It's hard to imagine what life was like before you joined our family. We are so happy you are ours.

What a Year Looks Like | 12 in 12 | A Personal Photography Project

In the beginning of 2013, I embarked on the first personal photography project I have ever worked on.

The idea behind it was that I wanted to photograph the same thing for a year, and see how it changed over the course of that year.

We bought our first house in October of 2012, so I decided to photograph my house, from my mailbox, on the first of every month in 2013 and document how the everything changed.

I started on January 1st, 2013, but unfortunately, I accidentally deleted those photos before I could back them up. Whoops! I blame it on winter brain.

So, my 12 in 12 is actually 11 in 11, because there is no photo from January 2013. However, the landscape didn't change at all from 1/2013 to 2/2013 so I don't feel too bad.

Every month on the 1st, I headed out to the mailbox and took two photos - one horizontal and one vertical. The results are below.

The hard part about this project was that the major seasonal changes, like the leaves budding out in the spring and the leaves turning colors and falling off in the fall happen in a matter of weeks. 

The way it turned out was that in May, there were no leaves on the trees yet. One month later in June, the trees were completely green. There weren't any photos of the intermediate times, because it all happened in the span of that month.

The same happened with the leaves in the fall. At the start of October, the leaves were really just beginning to change. There is a hint of color starting in the photos. And by November 1st, the leaves were way past peak, and most of them had fallen already.

If I were to do this again, I would be tempted to photograph every 2 weeks to capture more of the transitions. But for half of the year during winter, everything looks the same, so that would result in a lot of photos of white, bleak landscapes.

Regardless, it was fun to photograph this project through to completion and to see the way the seasons change the landscape of my home.

I also think this would be fun to have in a flip book so you could see the seasons changing rapidly in front of you.

My Life in Instagrams - January 2014

January rolled in right after we spent a week in Florida over Christmas.

We had warm Florida weather and then in came January, with it's bitterly cold temperatures and it drove us indoors for days and days at a time.

School was cancelled in Brainerd FOUR TIMES in January because it was too cold. That almost never happens. If school is cancelled, it's because it's too snowy. My mom said it's been decades since school has been cancelled for it being too cold. And to have it cancelled FOUR TIMES in one month?! Unheard of!

This month's highlights:

-Being reunited with our Remy girl after her spending the week at the boarders while we were in FL.

-Simplifying our house, and getting rid of a lot of things.

-Matt continuing to grow his hair out until he couldn't take it any longer. Then he cut it all off.

-A Remy-Dad birthday celebration with great food.

-Reading great books.

-Staying warm, thanks to the heat dish.

-Putting together our 2013 photo book. [Another blog post to come about this.]

Read 40 Books in 2014 - January Recap

Once again, I set a reading goal for myself this year, 2014.

My goal is to read 40 books for fun, and 8 business books. A goal in the middle of my 50-book goal of 2012 and my 35-book goal of 2013.

In January, I read 4 books.

I read:

Manhunting by Jennifer Cruise:

We did a book exchange for Christmas in my book club and this was my prize. It was the perfect book for me! The only thing that could have made it better was if I was reading it on the beach in the summer, instead of on my couch, under a blanket in the winter.

It was funny, lighthearted, and full of a good love story.

If I Kiss You, Will I Get Diabetes? by Quinn Nystrom:

This book holds a very special place in my heart! It is the first book from my dear friend Quinn Nystrom, who's mission in life is to advocate for a cure for diabetes. Even though I don't have diabetes, this book moved me in ways I didn't expect. It is relevant for everyone, whether you have diabetics in your life, or people with other chronic illnesses. Or, even if you don't, there are still lessons to be learned through Quinn's memoir.

Plus, an added bonus for me was that I photographed Quinn's author head shots. It's fun to see my name on the back of the book. :)

Takedown Twenty by Janet Evanovich:

I got my Lula and Stephanie fix! Before I read this book, I heard from several sources that they were disappointed by this one. It wasn't my favorite from this series, but I did enjoy it.

The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks:

This book...

I simply adore Nicholas Sparks, even though his books sometimes don't suit the 'happily ever after' preference I have for the books I read.

This book literally made me put the book down and sob my eyes out multiple times. In happy and sad ways. I think it touched me extra deeply because of the love story Ira was telling - it reminded me of my grandma and grandpa, and my grandpa passed away last July.

This book had a great ending, and I was left with swollen eyes and a happy heart. I loved it.

P.S. Do any of you ever look at book reviews online? I was grabbing the links for this post and clicked on the amazon reviews for The Longest Ride. I read through some reviews of people who talked about how 'boring and horrible' the book was. WHAT?!?!?!?! I honestly have NO idea how anyone could even criticize this book... Maybe I'm just not very discerning and love most books, but truly... I had to shut the window down because it was making me angry. To each their own, I guess!!

Did you read any favorites last month? 

2013 Book Recap - October to December

As of September 2013, my year to date book total was 26. 

In the last 3 months of the year, I read 9 more books, which brought my 2013 year end total to 35 books. 

Much lower than my 2012 total of 65, but I actually met my 2013 goal exactly. I wanted to read 5 business books and 30 fun books for a grand total of 35 books in 2013. In actuality, I read roughly 8 or 9 business books and 26 or 27 fun books, but the total is the same - 35!.

In October - December 2013, I read:

October:

Eventide by Kent Haruf - This was one of my Book Club books. It was beautifully written and I felt like the characters were people I'd known forever. It wasn't a book with a super happy ending, which left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I LOVE a good happy ending in my books and movies, so the fact that I felt sadness and sorrow after this book was over kept me from loving it. I did like it though.

November:

Midwives by Chris Bohjalian - This book was fantastic! It was part of Oprah's Book Club once and I picked it up at our library's book sale. With my nursing degree and birth place training, it was interesting subject matter for me. It was also a book that kept me wondering and kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. I highly recommend it!

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld - I scooped this book up from some young adult books my sister was giving away to charity. I was struck by the title and the saying that was on the front: "In a world of extreme beauty, everyone normal is ugly." SOLD! I'm in! It's mostly based in normal life, but it's futuristic so there is some future technology that was fun to think about. What if it's really like that in a few hundred years! The way the kids talk is also different and I found myself thinking about their vocab when I wasn't reading. I might have even used some of their terms in my real life, haha! I was even more thrilled to find out this was the first book in a series, because I LOVE series! 

Mrs. Mike by Nancy and Benedict Freedman - This was another of my Book Club books. It's an old book that many people have read in grade school; it's a classic. I had never heard of it so I downloaded it off amazon for my kindle app and read it on my ipad. [The third book I've ever read on my ipad!] It was an interesting read about a young girl who marries a canadian mountee and moves to the rural wilderness of northern Canada. It was funny, happy and sad. The way it was written was a little choppy and not all that sophisticated. But it was written a long time ago and really, I'm not that sophisticated. So I didn't mind. It was a fun read and made me glad that I don't have to live in that time period, in that climate!

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld - Book Two in the Uglies Series. Just as good as the first! This series had a way of turning the loyalties of the characters around so you are rooting for one person one time and then pretty soon, you like the other one better and want them to come out on top. Such an interesting series!

Specials by Scott Westerfeld - Book Three in the Uglies Series. Again, loved it! It was hard for me to believe this is a young adult series. The author tied in so many relevant and important issues like environmentalism, the way the media manipulates our perception of beauty, genetics, government etc. The book is layered with subtle controversial topics that would make for such great discussions! I wonder if high schools are having kids read these books? Or junior high maybe?

December:

Extras by Scott Westerfeld - Scott Westerfeld intended the Uglies Series to be a trilogy. But it was such a huge hit and his fans bombarded him with so much fan mail that he wrote a fourth book. It's set later, with a different set of characters. But it tied in the original characters too, which was great. I was left still wanting more, even after this fourth and last book was finished!

Merry Christmas, Cowboy by Janet Dailey - For Book Club in December, we were told to read a Christmas book. I browsed the shelves at the public library and came across this one. It was a lighthearted, fun, romantic read - exactly my type of book! I plan to read more from Janet Dailey. I think she writes a Christmas/cowboy inspired book every year, so I'll have plenty to read.

A Hundred Summers by Beatriz Williams - I put my name on the waiting list for this book in the summer. There must have been so many people on the list before me, because it took me 6 months to get it. It was a beautifully written book, set on the east coast. It flips between two time periods, in the 1920's and 30's, I believe. It's the same characters, just at a time in the past and in the present. Each chapter flipped back and forth which drove me crazy sometimes, but the book was truly incredible. Beatriz Williams has written at least one other book which I added to my To-Read list. She's a fantastic writer so I'm sure her other book will be great too.

And that's a wrap! My 2013 book reviews - all 35 of them!

If you want to look back on the rest of my 2013 books, here are the links:

January - May 2013
June - September 2013

Stay tuned for monthly recaps of my 2014 reads! My 2014 goal is 8 business books and 40 fun books for a grand total of 48. Somewhere in the middle of my 2012 and 2013 totals. It might be a bit of a stretch, but I am determined! 

Ready, set, let's READ!

Did you read anything incredible in 2013? Let me know if you have a new favorite book or even better, a series! I'm adding to my To-Read list!

The Baker Family | Brainerd, Minnesota | Family Photography

On a bitterly cold and windy day after the New Year, I met up with the Baker family for a session at their home. It was -10 or colder with at least a 15 mile an hour wind. It took three minutes outside for my fingers to go numb inside my gloves, and as a whole, we only lasted maybe 15 minutes outside. Those fifteen minutes were enough though, for the Baker family's joy and beauty to radiate and for us to be able to capture some great photos.

Thank you, Baker family, for toughing out the frigid tundra with me to create some awesome photos! Your poor dogs were even troopers in the cold. Enjoy! xo, Laura

A Heartfelt Thank You, 2013 LRI Clients!

My heart is bursting with gratitude for the people in these photographs.

Each of these people, my 2013 couples, families and seniors, had an impact on my life because of their patronage and their kindness.

I am grateful for each and every one of you that I was blessed to work with in 2013. Seeing your excitement about your babies-to-be, meeting your little ones, watching you interact as a family, and seeing your love blessed me in so many ways.

My sincerest hope is that life gets even better for you in 2014. I look forward to watching your journey if we're connected on social media, or if we're paths cross again sometime in the future. Please know that you have blessed me deeply by being a Laura Radniecki Images client.

Thank you.