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Finding Your Face

finding-your-face_cropped So if you are wondering where Paulo has been for the past month or so, well I have been working hard on cranking this yearbook out. It’s been a great experience - challenging at times but great. I guess what I enjoy personally was feeling we had created something which reinvents how we look at yearbooks. It’s always nice to be original.

Enjoy this preview of The American School of Kuwait’s 2008-2009 Yearbook. The total publication is actually 220 pages long but was shortened for easier viewing.

The cover is a hard cover with a duplicate dust jacket. The title is embossed on both and the school name is embossed and stamped in silver. The cover raps around the bind continuing the cityscape mosaic but also includes a silver stamp of the school emblem center back.

This book was directed by me, Paulo Valenza and Patrick Cauley. 2 classes, 33 students both from the middle school and the high school collaboratively working together.

Click here to view “Finding Your Face” full screen

By the way, really glad I found this Calameo site. It’s works just like YouTube but for publications. It’s the only site I could find that would do a flip book for free. Very nice!

May 25, 2009 | Categories: Kuwait City, Living, Nerdherd, Valenzalife Complete | Tags: The American School of Kuwait | 2 Comments »

Moving Sale and More!

I’ve made two pages regarding stuff we are tying to sell before moving to China. Unfortunately taking furniture and electronics into China has a high tax on it. If you are a new hire to ASK and are interested in any of our goods, please let us know. If you want to buy an item we easily can do it through PayPal. Choose from one of the preselected amounts or you can simply click pay now and adjust the amount once on the PayPal site. It might be wise to first email us so that we can confirm the item is still available.

Also our big ticket item is our valenzamobile, our 2003 Pajaro. Wonderful for battling the traffic here in Kuwait and off-roading in the desert. This vehicle is selling from 2700 KD to 3200 KD on www.Q8car.com, the only used site for purchasing automobiles in Kuwait. Actually the 2 Pajero’s currently listed are for 2700 KD and they are only 3 door, unlike our 5 door we are selling. Just so you know the Pajaro is the equivalent of a Montero in the US.

Scroll under Pages in the top main menu to find out more information about our sale and feel free to look around our site and maybe get a better feel for your new home here in Kuwait.

May 24, 2009 | Categories: Kuwait City, Living, Valenzalife Complete | 1 Comment »

Amira and her Kuwaiti Cousins

In preparation for Cousin Kiira’s 1st Birthday, we got all of the Kuwait Cousins together to take some pictures. It was quite the fiasco trying to get all four kids to stay still long enough to take a picutre. It actually took two mommies, two nannies, and one fantastic, fast-action camera to get these pictures. It was the first time I used Paulo’s fancy camera for something like this and am quite proud of how the pictures turned out. Now I understand why child photographers make so much money!!!

Special thanks to Amira & Tate Valenza, our nanny Mina, Kiira Ghosn, her nanny Chintha, and Aidan Cauley for being such willing participants. And also to Jennifer Cauley and Paulo for all of their help.
http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/With%20the%20Kuwait%20Cousins.flv

May 01, 2009 | Categories: Amira Grace, Kuwait City, Tate Laurence, Valenzalife Complete, Videos | Leave A Comment »

ColorSplash App for the iPhone

So check out this great app for the iPhone called ColorSplash. I’ve seen it in the store for quite some time now as a best seller but only got around to checking it out now.

As one who knows his way around Photoshop, I gotta admit - I think selecting and altering color just might be easier on the iPhone. This of course is all because of the wonderful touch screen. Simply toggle between what you want gray or color and use your finger to color! You can zoom in as close as you’d like to get the fine details.

If you are unaware, there are many rumors out there about Apples new product, a touchscreen tablet. Well ColorScheme makes me real excited about the potential of product.

– Post From My iPhone

Apr 23, 2009 | Categories: Nerdherd | Tags: App, Apple, iPhone | Leave A Comment »

a change for the better

iWeb
After much frustration and continual runarounds, I have decided to make the switch from Apple’s iWeb to WordPress. I am confident for the size of my website, this will be a good move in the long run. I am still working out how to get all of my old content back up on the web but hope it will be integrated soon.

I still believe in iWeb and think it is an amazing tool that Apple has created. For a simple page it is the way to go. Once you start adding pages of content however, it is a very risky investment as I have found out. After the last update to 3.0 I found many problems with publishing and spent hours trying to figure out how to get my content back up. Well, I’m now ready to move on.

Thanks for all your patients and hope you enjoy the new layout.

Apr 19, 2009 | Categories: Nerdherd, Valenzalife Complete | Tags: iWeb | Leave A Comment »

Amira Meets Tate

She couldn’t have been any cuter!

http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/Amira%20Meets%20Tate.flv[/flv]

Amira was extremely gentle and well behaved - thank God - as she held Tate for the first time. Enjoy these photos of Amira as she meets her baby brother for the first time. We’ve even included a short video for you to watch.

Even though this video is all about Amira meeting Baby Tate, half way through this song you’ll hear a great song called “Son of Mine”. This provides a perfect backdrop for a very tender moment as I hold Amira and Tate in my arms. Everything this song says is true for me and my new son. Thanks Ralston Bowls for such a great song!

Ralston is a personal friend of mine and you can learn more of Ralston’s great music by heading to site.

Mar 25, 2009 | Categories: Amira Grace, Tate Laurence, Valenzalife Complete, Videos | Tags: amira, birth, tate | Leave A Comment »

Our New Addition

baby tate What a great day. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers. It was a smooth delivery that took only 3 pushes during one contraction. We tried to get our family up on iChat for a video conference but it happened so quickly no one made it. That’s alright though. We have great photos and video of his birth.

After much thought, we decided on two names that carry significant meaning to us. Paulo’s close friend way back from High School is Mike Tatu. He has really been there for us all the way and is a creative and godly man. It is with great honor that our son’s name is inspired by him.

Laurence is the first name of Paulo’s favorite Jazz piano player, Laurence Hobgood. He plays for Kurt Elling, Paulo’s most favorite singer ever. If you really know Paulo, you’ll know Elling and Hobgood! Larry is also the name of Karin’s step-dad who has been there for her throughout the years.
http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/Tate's%20Birth.flv
Born March 24, 2009 10:40 am

Weight: 3.18 kg

Height: 50 cm

Blue eyes, brown hair

Mar 24, 2009 | Categories: Tate Laurence, ValenzaKidz, Valenzalife Complete, Videos | Tags: birth, kurt elling, laurence hobgood, mike tatu, Royal Hyatt, tate | Leave A Comment »

Amira Turns 2

How it goes fast. Hard to believe all that has happened in the past two years. As we celebrate our little girl’s big day we can’t stop thinking how much we have grown up in the past two years! We love Amira deeply and really wanted to do something special for Amira on her second birthday. And we did. It ended up being a great day with lots of friends, food, and trash?

Yeah, I had a great idea of having a party at a local park near Fintas. Lot’s of trees, green grass and a playground area. I wish I knew when the cleaners picked up all the garbage around the park. One would hope it would be constant - but I guess they had the day off or something. I just happened to swing by the park in the morning and discovered it was a landfill! Garbage everywhere! So I quickly went to the store and bought some cleaning gloves and trash bags. I managed to kind of clean the area where I thought we would be hanging out the most and then roped off our piece of land.

In general, it all worked out. We ended up having a great time. Ordered McD’s for lunch and just let the kids run around. The weather outside was gorgeous and the company of friends was great! Over all, despite the dirty park, I think everyone had a real nice time - and most of all Amira really enjoyed herself.

Happy Birthday Amira!
http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/Amira's%202nd%20Birthday.flv

http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/BirthdayPartyinthePark.flv

You’ll find two great short videos I’ve posted. One is video footage taken from our new HD Canon video recorder and the other is a fancy slideshow of all the photos I took with my Canon D30. Hope you enjoy!

Feb 04, 2009 | Categories: Amira Grace, Kuwait City, Videos | Tags: birthday | Leave A Comment »

Amira Playing

Here’s a quick video that I shot of Amira playing at the mall. I shot it on my iPhone while I was watching her play. It’s actually two different days over the weekend. The first is her playing at the Avenues store called Borque. It has a giant play area - sandbox and all! The second location is another mall in Kuwait called Al-Kuwt where they have this little play area in the food court. She played for hours and finally in the last 15 minutes figured out how to climb up, go around, and down the slide! Glad I could get it on video.
http://valenzalife.com/flv/AmiraPlaying.flv

Jan 30, 2009 | Categories: Amira Grace, Videos | Leave A Comment »

Visiting China and SCIS

img_5149-filtered Who would have thought we would ever be visiting China? How great it has been. Last minute we thought we would take advantage of our recruiting days off to visit our new home in Shanghai China. Let me just say we loved it. It was so good to get a feel for what the big city had to offer. Modern, clean, efficient are all ways to describe Shanghai.
It was great to see Don and Jane Macmillan, our former principals at ASK, and to hook up with our friends Eddie and Eva, whom we know from TTC in London. Our new school campus is incredible. Students and teachers will be making the move to the new campus within 2 weeks. So as you can imagine, everyone was quite busy. Very tech oriented and geared towards a learning environment. All we can do is make the appropriate arrangements and simply wait for fall of 2009 for the big move!

http://www.valenzalife.com/flv/China.flv

So hopefully this video can give you an idea of what life in Shanghai will be like. Unfortunately, I did not take very good footage this time around but it will do. The first half of this video will show you Shanghai. The second part will give you a tour of the new SCIS campus where Karin and I will both teach from. I have included small captions to explain what everything is. Again, SCIS will be making the move within 2 weeks to this new campus! It is incredible.

View Larger Map

Jan 15, 2009 | Categories: China, Shanghai, Travel, Valenzalife Complete, Videos | Tags: china, scis, Shanghai, ttc | Leave A Comment »

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