As the holidays were approaching, I dusted off the photo book generator I’d written last year and set out to create another photographic travelogue for our families in the US and France.

This time things were a little easier because I knew what I was doing. But I still had to filter through all the photos I’d taken in 2008, which numbered over 5,200. I pulled around 200 photos, emphasizing the trips we’d taken, and the shots with people. Eventually I culled them down to 105 images spread across 82 pages (7 pages longer than in 2007).

Since I wasn’t focused on the details of designing the book or writing the program to generate it, I was able to spend more time individually cropping and tweaking each photo. I also focused a lot on how each spread (the combination of every left and the right facing page) worked as a whole.

Once I’d stitched together a loose visual narrative, Stephanie and I set to writing the captions—in two languages. This was much easier said than done, and probably took the most time. In the end we’d written over 1,800 words.

Another challenge was coming up with a new cover. My creative juices were sapped after building the book, and I didn’t have any ideas that I thought could top the polaroid effect from 2007. Stephanie worried that if we did the polaroid thing two times in a row—we’d have to stick with it forever. We toyed with the idea of using a single image for the cover, but as soon as we added the year, it screamed calendar. So she started playing around with some other designs and eventually we came up with this multi-panoramic look. From top to bottom that’s Death Valley, Grand Canyon, Lassen, Joshua Tree, and Cinque Terre.

The week before Christmas we submitted the final 115 megabyte PDF off to Viovio and crossed our fingers hoping everything would come out ok (and on time). They all came out beautifully. Here’s a peek inside:

One thing that really struck me this year is how much fun it is looking back through last year’s photo book. I realized that the value of the book is not in the here and now, but later, after a few years have passed. All the time and energy we put into it over a few days in early December don’t just pay off at Christmas, but next year, and the year after that, and so on. At first we were motivated to start making these primarily as a way to connect with our grandparents, but now I can’t wait to show them to my grandchildren!

Update: my photo-book code is available on GitHub.

In what’s become something of a tradition, we took a photo this morning in front of the Christmas tree (before opening any presents). I hope everyone was able to spend some time with their friends and family over the holidays, or will be able to soon.

We brought the raclette machine with us to Austin in case my family would be willing to take us up on a “personal pan fondue”. Everyone was game, so we set out to do a slightly Americanized version of Raclette (our second after the raclette party).

Instead of boiled potatoes, we baked them as thick chips, instead of more exotic charcuterie, we had lots of black forest ham (and a little prosciutto), and in addition to the traditional raclette cheese, we had some emmental and gouda. On the side we had mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, broccolini, and a sliced baguette (the last three were not on the table when I took this overhead shot).

I think everyone discovered prosciutto is actually not bad, and that grilled ham is great. The potatoes were a total hit (a great innovation I say!) and went like hotcakes, so we eventually switched to bread, which my brother used to assemble little ham and cheese sandwiches. All the while we were so focused on prepping the machine (and feeding ourselves) that we completely overlooked the salad that we’d made.

Somehow Stephanie managed to catch us in action:

Last weekend was dedicated to wedding and baptism festivities (for Stephanie’s sister and niece, respectively). We cleared our schedule on Friday to help out however we could (and to recover from our Èze hike), but found that everything was under control. So after leading some Italian relatives to their hotel through the maze that is Sophia Antipolis, we stopped off at Stephanie’s middle and high school, the Centre International de Valbonne, for a quick tour.

Then we spent the rest of the day leisurely shopping at Decathlon (sporting goods), Chullanka (hiking and camping), and Carrefour (housewares and groceries). My prize find was a freeze-dried package of hachis parmentier for some future backpacking adventure. We also found olive-flavored Doritos at Carrefour.

On Saturday morning we got all dressed up, and made our way back to Valbonne for the ceremonies. We got there right at 10, in the middle of a hundred French and Italian relatives milling about on a narrow street just outside the Mairie (the mayor’s offices). After a handful of bises (kisses), Stephanie’s sister Aurelie arrived via car with her dad. A few pictures were taken, more bonjours and bises were given, and then the mayor came out to lead Aurelie, Michel, and their immediate family members inside. And thus they were married.

Then the whole group walked down to the Eglise Saint Blaise for the baptism of Luna, Aurelie and Michel’s daughter. A sermon was given in a French, a song was sung in English (Oh Happy Day), water was splashed on heads, amen.

From the church we departed to the wedding party in Grasse, held at the estate of a family friend. And thus the French Wedding began en force, though Stephanie would probably say that it was as much if not more of an Italian Wedding given Michel’s family’s background.

So what stood out to me? There was a giant wheel of Parmesan cheese off of which chunks were broken and dipped into 100 year old balsamic vinegar. I’m told in Italy they never cut Parmesan, they always break it. Wine bottles were set among the tables so you could help yourself. The party encompassed both lunch and dinner, I counted at least five courses: some pizza and other small foods available on arrival, then an enormous lunch buffet an hour or so later, followed by a pièce montée and a baptism cake, then pretty much the same food from lunch was brought out again just before dark, and at some point there was a cheese course.

The party lasted until after 1am. Or at least that’s when we said our au revoirs and drove back to Nice. On Sunday we rested. Here is a glimpse: