time-lapse

Gingerbread House Time-Lapse

December 18, 2012 By Misono in Creative Corner, Seasonal Celebrations, Videos Tags: gingerbread house, Mio, misono, Miwa, time-lapse, Trader Joe's, video

My sister and I built a gingerbread house last night! We had made one last year for the first time in years, and it was so much fun that we had to do it again. This year, we decided to make a time-lapse video to document the process, because we had so much fun making the tree-trimming time-lapse the other week.

We bought the gingerbread house kit from Trader Joe’s, and we really liked it for its unique look, all the materials it came with, and its unbeatable price — only $7.99! It’s imported from Germany, and while we have yet to eat it, the gingerbread was pretty soft and thick coming out of the box, compared to the rock-hard gingerbread you find in most other kits. It looks and smells delicious! I just love everything Trader Joe’s sells, especially during the holidays!

Here is the time-lapse video of us assembling and decorating the gingerbread house! Special thanks to Dan for setting the camera up and editing the video for us. 🙂

Some additional photos…

Our completed gingerbread house! — Miwa and I with our completed creation!

And Mio’s reaction to the gingerbread house? She saw it this morning during breakfast and broke out into a huge smile!

Pointing at the people — Curiously pointing at the people and the dog.

Maybe next year, Mio will be able to help build one with us! 🙂

Tree-Trimming!

December 3, 2012 By Misono in Creative Corner, Seasonal Celebrations, Videos Tags: Christmas, Christmas tree, decorating, holidays, time-lapse, timelapse, tree-trimming

Yesterday afternoon, we set up and decorated the Christmas tree! It was actually our first time decorating a tree together, because Dan and I never bought a tree while we were in California because we didn’t really have the space for it a lot of times, and were lazy. But tree-trimming is one of my favorite childhood memories of the holidays, so we wanted to make sure we revisited the tradition this year with Mio! 🙂

Earlier in the day, we met up with our friend Stephanie and she inspired us by showing us an awesome stop motion video she created of her pumpkin carving! (Check out more of her creative work at her blog, From Woo to You.) It definitely made an impression because when we returned from lunch and started unpacking the Christmas tree from my parents’ basement, I excitedly suggested to Dan, “Let’s make a stop motion video!” …to which he responded, “You mean a time-lapse, in this case? A stop motion would take forever.” And I said, “Yes! Time-lapse. That.” (Take no offense, videographers, I do indeed know the difference — just used the wrong term in my moment of excited inspiration!) So below is the result. Thank you so much Stephanie for inspiring us! We hope you all will enjoy this fun, short video of our first tree-trimming experience as a family! 😀

Maui 2012: Day 5

August 22, 2012 By Misono in Family and Friends, Videos, Wanderlust Tags: dan, Fishpipe, fog, Haleakala Crater, Haleakala National Park, Haleakala summit, Hawaii, Kihei, Kosei, Local Boy Snack Shop, Maui, Mio, misono, Miwa, Polo Beach, sunrise, Ted, time-lapse, video

On our fifth day in Maui, we woke up at 3am and left the cottage at 4am to drive up to the Haleakala Crater summit, in hopes of watching the famous sunrise which is said to be the most beautiful when seen from the volcano’s highest point at 10,023 feet. The drive took over an hour and a half, but we got there just in time for when the sun was scheduled to come up. It was freezing up there, but we bundled up and eagerly waited with cameras on hand.

View of the sunrise from the Haleakala Summit — View of the sun about to rise, from the Haleakala Summit

…and then came the most disappointing moment of the entire trip. It had looked like the sun was about to shine through the clouds and light up the valleys below, and then a massive fog came in and shrouded everything. It became dark, and we couldn’t see a thing.

We ended up not being able to see the sunrise because of the fog that shrouded over. — Darn you, fog!

You can see what happened in the time-lapse that Dan created, below.

We were really bummed, as this was supposed to be one of the biggest highlights of the trip and was one of the top attractions in Maui, probably second only to the Road to Hana. We found out afterwards that there was a hotline you could call the night before with a rating/forecast of how the sunrise would look the following morning. If only we’d known about it, we could have saved ourselves the early wakeup and long drive up and down the summit that had all been for naught.

At least we got some stunning views of the sunlit valleys of Maui on the drive down for the summit. I guess it wasn’t a complete waste of time…