Pinspiration MIA

You may have noticed a distinct absence of posting on our blog last week. If you follow us on Facebook, you will have seen that my sister, Marya, pretty much shattered her wrist while skating with her kids. Such a simple & straightforward activity. A mis-step to avoid a collision with her son on the ice, and bam. There goes the next 8 weeks. It's her right arm, and since she's right-handed, it's having a severe impact on her day to day life and productivity (have you tried typing one-handed with your non-dominant hand? Yeah. That'd be why she hasn't been posting). She's also not allowed to drive.

Marya's still awaiting word on whether or not she'll be needing surgery, but when she asked the Dr how bad the break was, he responded, "pretty bad." When pushed on it, he changed that to "really bad." She bypassed a 6 hour wait in the E.R. Ouch. So, if any of our readers out there have some tips for surviving parenting life with young kids when your dominant hand is out of commission, I'm sure that she'd love to hear them!

And if you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I was in the Sunny South while Marya was hopped up on pain meds and getting her bones reset.

Yes. This is #vacation. And yes, that is my husband in the pool with all the old folks. @thebvo pic.twitter.com/Fab07uIBmM
— Jenn Pinspired (@YouPinspireMe) February 18, 2014

Oma (my husband's mom) graciously took the kids for a week while we jet-setted away to a friend's condo in Fort Myers, Florida, where we met up with my husband's sister and her husband who flew in from Abbotsford, BC. When we arrived, it was a pleasant 10 deg C, but slightly chilly for a t-shirt and I was afraid that I didn't pack enough 'cool' weather clothing (I use that term loosely, since we were escaping -20C weather). However, every day in Paradise was warmer and more humid than the last, such that when we arrived back at the airport at the end of the week it was 98% hum and 25C at 6am.

When I was packing up to go on the trip, I really didn't want to bring my digicam along. I like it, and it's pretty, but common, people, this is 2014: Any device that only does ONE THING is a device that's taking up room in my bags. But, I'll be honest: I wasn't excited about using my iPhone 4S for pics, either - because while they're not bad photos, they're not great. And so, the lovely Elise from Rogers came to my rescue and shipped me a Nokia Lumia 1020 to use for the trip. I don't know if you've seen one of these, but they're kinda big and mostly awesome, with 41 megapixels. Did you catch that, or should I say it again? FORTY-ONE MEGAPIXELS. It's a camera that also happens to be a smart phone.

I did take my iPhone along, but kept it at the condo in order to iMessage and facetime with Oma and the kids in the evenings.

Fort Myers is pretty much a fantastic place to be in February. The weather is fantastic. The people are pleasant if not down-right friendly. The shopping is great (2 outlet malls!). The weather is fantastic. The tourist opportunities are abounding if you like driving along the sunny golf coast. The boating is fabulous. The weather is fantastic. The food is delicious. I should also mention that the weather is fantastic.

We kept tabs on the Olympics, of course, while we were there, and watched the Men's & Women's Curling and Hockey Teams win gold. #WeAreWinter! #EvenWhenWeAreDownSouth

Mostly, we enjoyed the sun, the water, and living on a child-free schedule for a brief moment. Our friends generously allowed us to use their Ft Myers vehicle whilst we were there, so Brian and I went on road trips to Estero Island (next time, avoid that place like the plague on President's Day. Whoops.) and Sanibel Island, and we also rented a boat for a couple days. Since we did this trip on a shoestring budget, neither of us had phone or data plans, but here's another win for the Lumia 1020: You can download maps onto the phone and then use it as a GPS with no data plan! This was a huge boon for us both on the roads and in the water (we had a 40 minute cruise through the bayou before we reached the Ocean, and when we were heading back inland, we definitely made use of the arial maps on the GPS more than once).

I stalked wildlife quite a bit on our trip, and was impressed more than once on the quality of picture that I ended up with when both the wildlife and I were moving at the time of the click! The pictures are crisp and clean and the colours are vibrant and clear. The Lumia 1020 also has a photo burst mode that's pretty fun to play with, and also a great way to catch a surfacing dolphin!

I need to mention one thing about the burst mode of the camera: you can do all sorts of cool effects and edit the pics on the camera itself, but if you want to find a specific picture of the 9 that were taken, there's a bit of a trick. Once you've downloaded your photos to your computer, you'll end up with some files that are .nar - this is where your burst pics are hiding. Change the extension from .nar to .zip, then click on the folder and extract all pics. This will give you access to all of the photos in that burst that you took. 

Well, vacation is over, and we're back in the land of the Polar Vortex. Actually, no. We're back to our Very Canadian Winter. The high for today was -12C. Is it too much to ask for a week of weather warmer than -5?

This is not a sponsored post. Rogers very kindly lent me the Nokia Lumia 1020 for use on my vacation, and I'm so pleased to have had it. These opinions are soley mine. I have a bit of a hard time with the Windows operating system on the phone, and some of the apps are a little quirky and not as good as on other smart phones, but that's why I'd call this an amazing Camera first, that also happens to be a smart phone. I'd gladly use it for my day-to-day use, if it meant having that camera on me to capture all of the little moments in our family life in 41 megapixels!