We got the pre-game going on Wednesday night, of course. Reagan had already received a huge order from Fresh Direct, and stopped by Gristedes on the way home. But of course, that did not preclude me having to rush back out to the bodega, as soon as I walked in the door from work. So, after buying a $10 bottle of pure cranberry juice, along with some fresh sage and rosemary leaves (for the turkey brine), we rolled up our sleeves and got after it. Reagan made three pies: Apple (below), Pumpkin (above) and Chocolate.

I whipped up some turkey brine, dropped in the turkey and put it out on the fire escape to marinate over night. After doing all of this, and a bunch of other stuff, we finally retired to the couch to watch the second half of a James Bond movie. Syfi, is having a JB marathon all weekend. Around 2ish, we finally called it a night.

We got up kind of early (by holiday standards) and headed up to Westchester to hang out with Piper (I’ll write more about that in a different post). We got back to our pad around 12:30 or one. I fired up the oven and got the turkey going. Note, this is the first time that I have ever attempted to cook a turkey. After 6 hours of meticulous tending (and a cat nap), this is what I pulled out of the oven:

I wish that I would have thought to get a shot of it before I started carving it up. It was juicy and delicious. I had to give myself a pat on the back for that one. Since we don’t really have a dining table, Reagan made some cute little place settings at either end of the coffee table, where we sat on the floor and ate our T-day dinner together. I hope that everyone else had an awesome Thanksgiving!

In June, I saw this crazy thing called a burgermelt (a Friendly’s invention, consisting of a burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches) on the internet, and asked Reagan to make it for me. She totally did it.  So, last weekend, when I saw this thing called a Fried Cheese Melt, which is apparently a new addition to the menu at Denny’s (it is a grilled cheese sandwich with fried mozzarella sticks in the middle),  I once again forwarded the link to Reagan, asking her if she could make it. Friday night, when I arrived at my house, Reagan had already purchased all of the stuff to make it. She even fried her own mozzarella sticks!

The finished product came out better that it looked in the Denny’s photo (and I’m sure tasted better, too).

So good.

I mean, look at this thing:

I have complained about New York City’s lack of authentic Mexican food, on more than one occasion. Several kind people have made suggestions of restaurants to try. The suggestions usually did end up leading to some pretty good food. But, I think that maybe after seeing the photo above (purchased from a taco truck in the bay area, CA),  it will be a little more clear what I’m looking for. I feel like I shouldn’t have to go all of the way to Cali to get a $5 Tijuana-special carne asada. Thanks to Zach for documenting the very thing that I have been searching so diligently for in the city that supposedly has everything.

Speaking of diligently searching. I was finally able to track this down, late Wednesday night.

I had a really fun day hanging out with my valentines. Reagan and I work up early, because she has been building pork barbacoa for the last day and a half. She has been making the stuff in the slow cooker, for some burritos tonight. It smells totally delicious. Before heading to Westchester, we took a quick jaunt out to Williamsburg, Brooklyn so that Reagan could pick up her Valentines Day present at Catbird.

We had a pretty nice visit with Piper. She was kind of rowdy. I think that it is just because she loves her mom so much, she can’t contain herself. She was kind of obsessed with my hat, today. She kept taking it almost all of the way off of my head, then putting it back on. Then, tapping the little button on the top. Silly little monkey.

I hope that everyone else had a great Valentines Day!!

Last night, Reagan and I went to a church on the east side to watch a live nativity with some of our friends. Afterward, we ate at this Brazilian place called Zebu, on 92nd and 2nd. It was pretty awesome food. I woke up bright and early this morning with an excited little wife tugging on my arm, asking me when I was going to get out of bed. Reagan was already showered and ready to get this Christmas going. Hahahah. We opened some presents, then packed up the car and headed to see Piper. She was still a little bit groggy when we arrived. Her hair was full-on mad scientist, hahaha.

She was in a super good mood though. She definitely knew that something was up, right away. Reagan put her into her new Christmas pinafore that she got from her aunt Sarah, then fixed her hair. After that, it was straight to business. Piper was totally into opening presents, this year. She was tearing them open like a total pro, smiling all the while.

I totally love the photo below, of my two smiley Christmas girls.

As always, I totally went overboard with the photos, but here are a bunch more, if you want to check them out.

Last night we attended a party thrown by our friends Kim and Ryan, in Harlem. It was a lot of fun, because they went ALL OUT. The indoor decorations are well documented over on Kim’s blog, if you want to get a sense of what I’m talking about. But it didn’t stop there. They had dancing on the roof.

Even though I’m not much of a dancer, and I was freezing/begging Reagan to come back inside with me the whole time. It was really cool. And, for those who were dancing, it didn’t seem like the cold was affecting them much. Notice Reagan’s breath in the shot below:

There are a few more photos over here.

We have already had a pretty busy week, this week. I worked late yesterday, but still managed to fit in a winter line launch party for Flud Watches. Then Tuesday night, Reagan and I attended a (work related) holiday party at Rockefeller Center. It was at one of the restaurants that is adjacent to the skating rink. Skating was included in the party festivities. I went to this party alone a couple of years ago, and Reagan really felt bad, because I don’t really even like skating, she does. Plus she had been begging me to take her. So I hope that this year makes up for it. We brought the point and shoot, but it died after the first shot. So, all of these pics are from the gritty lil blackberry cam.

Apparently Reagan, at some point today read a Facebook blurb from my sister about cherry limeade. She said that she had been craving one, ever since.  So, that is what she ordered at the bar. The bar tender was a little bit stumped at first. But after she explained it a little bit, the mixologist (yes, I am using that term, because the dude earned it) came up with a pretty fancy looking drink that seemed to satisfy Reagan’s fever. Try to ignore my totally serious face, below. I was focusing pretty intently on keeping a steady arm for the photo. Doesn’t Reagan look cute though?

Reagan on skates, below.

In addition to all of the festivities of the last couple of days, we also finished our Christmas cards tonight! Man, I’m feeling pretty productive, right about now.

Here is a link to a couple more crappy blackberry cam shots of Reagan posing with her skates on.

Reagan’s friend from high school, Lacy, and her husband, Alex, were in town this weekend for work. So we were able to hang out with them pretty much the whole time that we weren’t in CT. It was fun to see them. Last time I saw Lacy she was pregnant with their little guy, Noah. We ate at this place in the West Village called Sweetie Pie’s, where Reagan has been begging to eat, ever since we walked past it on the way to a party once. The place has mirrors on the ceiling (see above), and came with little plastic animals on the drinks (see below).

After lunch, we made our way down through Washington Square Park to SoHo, so that Lacy could do some shopping. Reagan didn’t mind tossing around a couple of poses in front of the recently refinished fountain in the park. Hahahaha. Reagan also got some really great shots of their visits with Piper. You can check em out over here. I’m sure that she will write about it soon.

I titled this post “Conference Weekend,” because it is the weekend that our church, instead of having local meetings, just has one mega-meeting, that everyone watches on TV/Webcast Billy Graham-style. Okay, not really Billy Graham-style, at all. Lucky for us, everything comes out in print, in a few weeks. Because we missed most of it. We ended up having an insanely busy weekend.

I ran a half marathon in Central Park, Saturday morning. I wouldn’t recommend the course. It is basically just 2 laps of CP Drive. Normally this is fine. But when you are trying to get a good time, the hills at the north end of the park can break your spirit a little bit. Reagan showed up to cheer me on (which helped, immensely) and take some photos. My goal was to score less than 1 hour and 30 mins. I missed it by 5 minutes, but still beat my previous best by almost a minute.

^—-My blistered up feet.

I thought that I was going to have to go into work after the race. It turned out that I didn’t have to. So after having a nice visit with Piper, Reagan and I basically went nuts and tore our entire house apart to accommodate a new shelf that Reagan has been begging to buy for a month or so. In involved moving a 1000 lb. aquarium, dismantling some wall-mounted shelves, patching the wall, painting the wall, re-arranging all of the furniture in 2 rooms and cleaning up a spilled gallon of paint.

^—-Reagan, driving us up to see Piper

We were able to take a break on Sunday morning, while having some superbly delicious homemade cinnamon rolls with a few of our friends, followed by another great visit with our baby. Our house still hasn’t completely recovered from the transition, but it is pretty close. All in all, it was a pretty productive weekend.

We had a pretty eventful holiday weekend. Reagan’s sister Jody and her friend Chrissy came to visit Piper (and us). During our activities, we went to the flea market (above), saw the last showing of “9-5″ on Broadway, and had some really great visits with Piper.

^–Throwing back some grub at Shake Shack

^—Reagan and Jody in a cab (I always get stuck riding in the front seat, when there are 4 of us).

^–Near Sheep’s Meadow, in CP