Sophia Blake Long Part II...and other news...

Hello blog. Sorry it's been a couple months. Firstly, the latest stats on the little one. As of December 9th Sophie is...

Weight - 5.18 Kg (11.4 Lbs)

Height - 58.7 Cm (23.1 In)

Given that these are now a month old she is probably about twice these.

Secondly, there are even more babies on the scene here in Amsterdam. Another friend/coworker of Kindra's, Helen, just had a little girl named Edie. That makes three babies within two months of each other at Kindra's agency. Pretty cool as they are going to put in a pump room for the gals to get all topless and hang out in. :)


In early December, Deb and Jim arrived for their first visit with Sophie. We had a great time cruising around the city and luckily Dad was over for his birthday so we were able to celebrate with a great dinner at Restaurant Incanto. We've eaten there once before with Kindra's Aunt Daryl and Aunt Pat and her family. It's a great spot and is up there with De Kas (De Kas remains our favorite but we were able to go there as well).


While Jim and Deb were here we also went to the Hard Rock cafe to see Sophie's first Santa. Santa was some American guy that was randomly saying "Go Ducks" to the little Dutch kids which I thought was pretty funny. Turns out he's from the Oregon coast but his 'elves' got mad at him when we started talking about where he lived and it wasn't the North Pole. When I handed Sophie to him for a photo he said, "Wow. I haven't held a baby in years." I didn't find that funny but he did a fine job as you can see from the shots below...


Later in December Henne, Nikky, Amanda and Josh came for a visit. Henne and Nikky ended up spending Christmas in the UK but it was great to have Amanda and Josh here for the big day. We also threw an early Christmas Eve dinner while everyone was here which was great. Due to our tiny kitchen we ordered out for the turkey...again.



After Henne and Nikky headed to the UK we went with Sophie, Amanda and Josh over to Leiden to have Christmas dinner with Kindra's uncle Nick. It was a nice day with great food, great wine and even a nap on the floor during a 'Christmas Story'.


On the 28th we are rented a car and headed to Belgium. We stayed a couple days in Brussels and a couple days in Brugge but unfortunately packed a stomach flu and spent most of our time in the hotel room. Luckily Sophie didn't catch anything which is probably due to the anti-bodies in breast milk. Amazing stuff.



For some more recent photos CLICK HERE and for the latest video please see below.



Hope everyone is good and stay in touch.

Sophie and Tristan

Last Friday Kindra and I went to her friend Jana's house. Jana just gave birth to her son Tristan 9 days ago. Sophie has met one other baby before (Molly and Gregg's son Gus), but she was asleep the whole time...kind of like Tristan this time. Kindra and Jana's friend Helen was also there. Helen is expecting her first baby two weeks from now, so soon we won't have any friends without kids.



Although Tristan is much younger, seeing Sophie next to another baby makes her look massive...







See the whole set by CLICKING HERE.

A Family Visit

Last Sunday Nick (Henne's Brother), Lisbet, Brit, Lizzie, Donnie, Rick and Jeffrey came to visit. Sophie was in good form and we had a great time hanging out with the family.



Sophie's also starting to chub up a bit. Nice and healthy...



Some more recent shots can be seen by CLICKING HERE.

Katie's Visit and Footprints

It was great having Kate here to help with Sophie. She was the ultimate doting Aunt and spent a ton of time with her new niece. One thing we decided to do while she was here was to get Sophie's footprints. It was a dirty affair but Sophie didn't seem to mind and in the end we got some good ones.





Kindra pointed out the large size of her feet. It would appear that young Sophie has inherited the curse of large Norwegian extremities. She is above the curve in height and weight but really above the curve in head size. Kindra attributes this to my massive cranium as her's is rather small. Interesting as she is very smart.

Despite our confidence after successfully capturing the feet, we gave up on the handprints after a couple attempts. Sophie just wasn't having it so this alien looking one is the best that we got. Probably just as well as baby handprints remind me of the Blaire Witch Project and scare me.


We also made it out with some friends of mine from work and a couple of their friends that were visiting from Spain. This is us with Jab, Ferran and Marcos. Unfortunately, Jose is not featured.

Visits and the One Month Mark

We had Sophie's one month check up with the GGD on November 1st. The GGD is a government agency that monitors the growth of all babies in the Netherlands and makes sure that they are growing at a good pace and getting their vaccinations, etc. The first visit is just weight and height. No needles till next time when I'm sure Sophie won't have as much of a good time.

The vital stats from this visit were as follows...

Weight: 4.33 Kg or 9.5 Lbs

Height: 56 cm or 22 in

Outside of that the visits have begun. Starting with Jan who came for a couple weeks shortly after Sophie was born. We weren't the liveliest bunch but it was great having Jan here. She helped a ton with keeping us in more food than we could eat...



In other news we've had three visitors in the last week and a half. My mom Glenda and her friend Kate were here for about a week before heading back to California. They got some good Sophie time in and managed to take in a few tours as well.

The day after they left Sophie's aunt Kate arrived. She said she didn't want to put Sophie down while she was here and we are doing our best to hold her to it.


More shots from the past few weeks can be seen by CLICKING HERE.

What's a Grandma? Fudge. More Photos...

According to Wikipedia, Grandparents are family members, the father or mother of a person's own father or mother, being respectively grandfather and grandmother. Grandparents form an important element of the extended family.

In traditional East Asian cultures influenced by Confucianism, filial piety is one of the highest moral values. Grandparents usually exercise their authority on family matters, and their descendants should obey their seniors. This kind of structure has eased with the increasing influence of western culture and the increasing number of nuclear families.

We found this interesting but more interesting is the differences in what Sophie's four grandmothers want to be called. So far we are three for four...

Jan wants to be called Mimi. This is a southern term for Grandma.

Deb wants to be called TaTa. This is short for the Spanish term for Grandma, Abuelita.

Nikky likes Oma. This is the Dutch term for Grandma.

Glenda wants to be called Grammy. This means Grammy in many languages.

In other new, I gave Fudge a bath and filmed it...



Lastly, some more shots of the pretty lady can be found by CLICKING HERE.

Sophia Blake Long...The Film!

You won't believe this...

More shots of Sophie...

CLICK HERE

Kindra and Sophia Come Home

Well, we are all finally home.

It was a miraculous ordeal. A true miracle. One with which we could bore you with details of life, pain, sleeplessness, industrial espionage, lack of ice water, etc.

However, we'd rather bore you with more pictures of Sophia because she's just so dang cute.

Click HERE.

Sophia Blake Long

Sophia Blake Long was born October 1st, 2007 at 8:45am and weighed 3.228 KG (8.08 LBS).

See more shots: HERE

Leiden - Schoemaker Get Together

Kindra, Henne and I went to Leiden on the 15th for a family get together. It was the first time in years that all the Schoemaker kids had been in one place.

Click HERE to see some photos form the day...

CanYouFIFA08.com Is Live

The project we have been working on since last December is finally live. Check out CanYouFIFA08.com and the below videos. There are a lot more on YouTube as well...

Prague Shoot


Manchester Shoot


Porto Alegre Shoot

Kindra+Jesse Buttons

A lady in our office named Gwen make drawings of people and then makes them into buttons. In her words...

drawings of you
is a little people's plan to use little pins to hold people all over the world together to raise money to
make a children's book for charity.
It starts at W+K Amsterdam where there are 150 people 25 nationalities.

Here are the drawings she did of Kindra and I...






These are the buttons she made...




This is what happened when people tried to draw her: International Draw Gwen Day

Kindra Biking

This is actually from 2006. Enjoy it...until Kindra makes me take it down...

Greece

Took a bit to edit but here it is...

Brazil in Slo-Mo

Back from Brazil. This video is what 6 days of terrible weather and a new camera gets you.

PHBLOG - Porto Alegre, Brazil

PHBLOG - Porto Alegre, Brazil
Originally uploaded by jessegordonlong.

The cool thing about traveling halfway around the world to Brazil to shoot an outdoor TV commercial when it is basically a monsoon is...oh wait, there's nothing cool about it.



This is the view from my hotel room. Unfortunately the photo doesn't show how ridiculously cold it is.

A Visit, Greece Trip and EA Travels

We started out early June with a visit from four of our good friends from Oregon. Nate and Kate Snow and Ryan and Sarah Pitman came for a long weekend on the back end of a trip to England.




We had a great time showing them around Amsterdam and heading out to a park that we had never been to called Hoge Veluwe National Park. When you get to the park you have to take one of the free bikes and ride a couple of kilometers to the Kröller-Müller Museum. The museum has a huge sculpture garden on the outside and a ton of famous Van Gogh and other works on the inside. Well worth the trip although the bikes are crap.




During the trip the group rented bikes and got around Amsterdam like proper locals. Among other places we biked to a great dinner at De Kass and up the Amstel river for some wine and a snack. It was a great visit and good to see close friends.




Two days after Nate, Kate, Ryan and Sarah took off Kindra and I went to Greece for our last 'pre-parenthood' trip (as Kindra has a 10 pound ball for a stomach she might argue that this was my last 'pre-parenthood' trip). We flew into Athens and then took a boat to the island of Mykonos.




Athens wasn't that impressive but we only spent a little over a day there. This was either the perfect amount of time or not enough time to realize the inherent beauty of the massive somewhat rundown city. If you do find yourself in Athens I would highly recommend visiting the Plaka neighborhood and checking out the Acropolis. Luckily these are right next to each other so both can be done in one day.




Once on the island of Mykonos you will be hard pressed to find anything cultural to do aside from a day trip to Delos. This lack of activity was exactly what we were looking for.

After eight amazing days on Mykonos we headed back to Athens for a night before heading back to Amsterdam. On our last night we found a great rooftop theater playing Ocean's 13. Probably not the most cultural of evening plans but we figure since we got a Starbucks before the movie we were practically natives.




Since our return to Amsterdam we had a brief visit from Jan, who helped us pick out some soon to be needed baby gear. We also had another great meal at De Kass during her visit, which if you can't tell, is our favorite restaurant in Amsterdam.

After Jan's visit Kindra and I have gotten back into work mode. I've been traveling pretty much since with a shoot in Prague, then Manchester and now Porto Alegre, Brazil, where I'm writing this from. Although being in Brazil sounds sexy it took over 24-hours of travel to get here (including the scariest landing of my life last night) and is basically monsoon-like weather conditions. Fingers crossed this clears by Wednesday or we are going to have a tricky shoot.

For some more shots from 'A Visit, Greece Trip and EA Travels' click here.

W+K vs. 180

This is a bit outdated but I just realized I hadn't posted it.

My agencey (W+K) played Kindra's agencey (180) at a game of B-ball back in May. We stomped them.

For a full write up check out the W+K blog entry written by yours truly.

FAPL Trophy

FAPL Trophy - Jesse.jpg
Originally uploaded by jessegordonlong.

This is me with the FAPL Trophy. It was at a shoot with Wayne Rooney who plays for Manchester United, which happened to win the trophy last season.

I grabbed a shot during some down time and referred to it as a cup. This actually makes the security staff that travel with the "trophy" angry. It is a 'trophy' not a 'cup' despite having what I consider to be a 'cup-like' appearance.

Since I had to look up what it actually was I thought I'd try and look quizzical. I think I ended up looking just kind of dumb instead.

Phblog - Mykonos Island, Greece

Phblog - Mykonos Island, Greece
Originally uploaded by jessegordonlong.

This is the view from our hotel room on Mykonos Island. We are feet from the Platis Gialos beach and a short boat ride from Paradise, Super Paradise and Elias beaches to name a few.



We have spent the first few days on the Platis Gialos and Super Paradise beaches. We are sunburned for our efforts.



Today we are going to rent a four wheeler and go explore a bit with plans for a snorkeling trip and a tour of Delos Island later in the week.



We are loving it.

Jesse almost died...

The shelf above my desk, which has about 100 lbs worth of books, folders, DVDs, hole punchers, etc. on it, collapsed last week.

Luckily, with my cat like reflexes and propensity to get scared I was able to push off and roll my chair (and myself) to safety.

It was a close call and gave the phrase "EA is going to kill me" a lot of credence.The largest thing to fall (and the closest thing to land on me) was a book entitled "The Next Ten Years of Electronic Arts". It weighs about 25 lbs.

The incident made it on the WK blog as well. Shelf Disaster.

Rita's Day at the Beach

Our friends Stephen and Tara have a dreadfully smelly Basset Hound named Rita. When Stephen invited Kindra and I to a day at the beach what he meant was "will you drive us to a Basset hound convention cause I don't have a driver's license?"

Here's the video...

Mike, Ryan and Norway

Been a busy month already. It started with the arrival of our good friend Mike Kleps. Mike had been in Thailand for a few months before sailing toward the EU. After getting stuck behind some US warships in the Suez Canal and getting sick in Egypt he decided to jump ship and fly to Amsterdam to spend a few days with us.

While in Amsterdam he prepared for a bike trip, borrowed my bike and left for three weeks. More to come on that trip after he gets back in late May.

Days later saw the arrival of my good friend and college roommate, Ryan Keith. Ryan did a tour of France and a brief stop in Brussels before coming to see us in Amsterdam. Ryan has lived in Napa for the last few years and has turned into a bit of a wine connoisseur. In addition to drinking a lot of our wine we ran around Amsterdam and took in a glorious windmill...


After Ryan's departure we made ready for a quick trip of to Norway. We traveled at the crack of dawn on Thursday May 17th and arrived in Oslo around 10am on Norway's National Constitution Day. The streets were packed and we had to cross a massive parade to get to our hotel. The rest of the day we walked all over the city which was crowded with people in traditional Norwegian clothes. Apparently you dress in the clothing that is specific to the city or area you were born in. You are only allowed to wear these outfits if you are less than one generation removed. IE. your grandparents have to have physically lived in the area in question for you to wear the outfit. I'm not sure how they prove this but I bet it results in a lot of arm wrestling.


The following day Kindra and I left on the Royal Fjord tour. The trip takes a day and goes from Oslo to Myrdal by train, from Myrdal to Flam on the Flam Railway, from Flam to Bergen by boat and then from Bergen to Norway by train again. It's a crazy long day and if we'd had more time we would have stayed in one of the smaller cities along the way. The route is outlined on the map below and passes through snow, mountains and the longest Fjord in Norway, the Sognefjord...


Our train returned to Oslo at about 6.30am and after trucking to our hotel we were lucky to get an early check-in and take a nap. The rest of the weekend was spent tooling around Oslo, taking ferries to islands and finding places to spend millions of dollars eating. Oslo is so expensive it is insane.

We checked out the Akershus Fortress, the Vigeland Sculpture Park and the Fram museum which houses the Fram and the Gjoa. Learning about these things was very special for me as I'm pretty sure I'm related to everyone in Norway.


All in all a great longerude weekend and it sucks being back at work. We have friends visiting in early June and are headed to Greece for vacation on June 7th. We are happy to have more lazing about to look forward to.

More Flickr action...LINK TO SWEET NORWAY PHOTOS

PHBLOG - Norway

Norway
Originally uploaded by jessegordonlong.

We have returned to the Mother land (assuming that great grand parents being born here makes me Norweigen).



This is Kindra gazing from the train on our way to Oslo.

Queen's Day...THE MOVIE!!!

You've seen the photos, now see the excitement.

Trips, Tavel, Queen's Day and Baby News...

Again, it has been a long time since our last post. Things have been really crazy and we have been traveling a fair bit in Europe and in the US. We've also done some local trips around Holland as well but the big news is we are pregnant.


We are a little over four months along and have an expected due date of late September although we have been told that your first is generally a bit late. However, we have really been told just about everything on the topic of babies in addition to hours online and about thirty books and counting. So far the one truth we have found is that none of it is consistent. Regardless, we are very excited. We will be staying in Amsterdam for the birth, so the baby will have dual nationality which is pretty cool. Although we have the option of finding out the gender in a couple of weeks, we have decided to refrain, and instead, to keep this a surprise until the big day. True to form, I will keep you posted with pics as Kindra gets bigger and we get closer to the due date.

In other news, back in March our friends Stephen and Tara invited us to the coast for the day. What was going to be a day at the beach turned out being Basset Madness, a Basset gathering of about 50 Dutch Basset Hounds. This was actually a pretty funny/smelly site. I'm working on the video...

Kindra and I have both been traveling a crazy amount. I ended up in Vancouver, Canada, Geneva, the UK, LA and Portland in the span of about 3 weeks and Kindra went to Tucson to visit her mom.

A few of these were boring work trips but LA was a mix as I flew there for a commercial shoot but was able to visit our good friends Chris and Jean. They are currently living in Venice not too far from the beach and craziness of the Venice pier. We cruised around Venice and up the coast to Santa Monica on their beach cruiser bikes. It was a great couple days and I'm completely jealous of their set up. After a couple days in Venice I went over to Hollywood for work. It's not that far from Venice but with traffic you might as well be in a different state. The shoot was for the latest Harry Potter video game and went very well. I'll share the spots when they get online.


After LA I flew up to Portland to see some friends and family. I was surprised in the airport baggage claim by Ben who had flown up for the weekend. Deb picked us up and after driving to Lake Oswego for Matt's track meet we drove over to Sister's, Oregon to spend a couple days at the Lazy Z ranch. Pretty relaxed couple of days with the a trip to Bend and somewhere else to see a soccer game of Matt's.

We also played with the dogs a fair bit. I love this shot of Kate and Tess because Tess is completely off the ground...


After the ranch Matt and I took Ben to the airport so he could fly back to SF and then headed back to Salem. The rest of the week was spent catching up with buddies, heading down to Eugene to see my sister and Nate and Kate Snow and getting by butt kicked by my dad and his buddies at racket-ball. My welts have healed by now...

On Saturday I headed back to Amsterdam which Kindra had done the day before. It was a great two weeks but felt really good to get back to the Nederlands and finally see Kindra again.

Kindra's Tucson trip was great as well. Jan moved to Arizona going on a year and half ago (a few months before we moved to Amsterdam), so this was Kindra's first opportunity to see her mom's house, meet all of her Arizona buddies and see the sights around town. Jan and her hiked through the canyons in Arizona, went to a wildlife refuge, lounged in the sun and had some great meals in and out (Kindra is now homesick for US cuisine) Kindra also used the trip to see some US doctors about the pregnancy which all went very well. She also took advantage of the time in the US to get some maternity clothes as she is rapidly growing out of her wardrobe.


Holland has a great medical system but it can be a bit daunting when you speak a different language. I also think they practice a bit of a Darwinian form of medical care in that if your leg isn't falling off you shouldn't be waisting their time. Whatever the case it seems to be working as Holland is the only nationality that continues to get taller per capita.

Since being back it has been work as usual with a couple of highlights. We rented a car with Loz, Jen and their baby Sam and headed about an hour southwest of Amsterdam to see the Keukenhof Gardens. This is the Disneyland of tulips and all though it was a bit tourist it was fun and pretty amazing.

We've also recently had the 25th anniversary party for Wieden+Kennedy which was a two day long party that has left half of the agency sick with "flu like symptoms." I also played in a basketball game that was arranged between my agency (WK) and Kindra's agency (180). There is a rivalry here that has a long history that I won't get into but they handle Adidas and we handle Nike. It was a fun match up and didn't get too out of control...except for some prison ball moves by our team that were more a lack of experience than anything malicious. It was also made more pleasant by the fact that WK kicked the crap out of 180 3 games to 1. Kindra has not heard the end of my bragging about the game and complaining about how sore I am. There will be a movie coming soon but until then you can check out the WK Blog posting here.

Monday was Queen's Day so the city fell into complete insanity and closed down for the day. We took it fairly easy and just walked around the city with friends. There are some good photos on the Flickr link below and one here.


In other news I set up a map at work using Google Maps. On this map people in the Amsterdam office can login and post where they are from. Pretty cool and gives a good visual of how diverse the office is. You can take a look here if you want.

Lastly, we switched up our photo sharing as we are now using a Flickr account. Should be pretty easy to figure out and it is a lot easier to upload to so hope you like it...LINK TO SWEET PHOTOS