Last week I was in New York for work and Annie initially had a rather hard time dealing with it. She’d only just started to get used to the idea that I was going to be working outside of the home and gone during the day when – boom – I was on a business trip and suddenly not home day or night. To cheer Annie up I decided that, on the first morning I was gone, I would make a “Good morning” video and text it to Heather to show Annie when she woke up. So, as I got ready that first morning I made a really simple video in my hotel room telling Annie that I hoped she’d have a great day, listened to her mom, and that I loved her. I hit “send” and ran out the door.

Later, Heather texted me that Annie LOVED the video and was over the moon with happiness. Since the video went over so I well I decided to send another video the next day, but this time I made things a little more exciting by filming it as I walked along the streets of New York. This video went over great, too, so for the rest of the trip I shot a video each morning and did my best to top the one from the previous day. I shot a video with cars zooming down 5th Avenue in the background, I filmed one in a beautiful city park, and I even filmed one on the subway!

The coolest part of all of this is that on the second morning a text popped up on my phone with a video on it. Annie, it turned out, was not satisfied with just receiving videos, and decided to send one back to me!


If you can’t see the video above click here.

Annie sent me a response video every morning, and I have to say they made my day every bit as much as mine made hers.

Technology really makes being away from home a lot easier than it used to. When I was a kid in the early Nineties my Dad lived in Australia for many months before we moved over to join him, and some days we didn’t even get to talk him on the phone. Now, though, you can trade videos, Face Time, and chat anytime you want thanks to cell phones. It’s pretty cool, but as much as I loved getting videos from Annie, I like being able to wish her a good morning in person a whole better.