There are kind of a lot of photos in this post.  But, most of them are of a cute little girl on Christmas morning. So, I feel like that makes it acceptable. Reagan and I were able to have a nice long visit with Piper on Christmas eve, with our friends Sam and Anna. The visit involved hanging out in pjs and a puppet show (there might be a forthcoming video of the puppet show). Piper was in a great mood. She played hard and laughed a lot. We probably actually got her too wound up. Because Christmas morning she was a bit cranky, as if she hadn’t had enough sleep the preceding night. Anyway, she was still up for opening gifts and hanging out.

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And here are a couple of additional photos that I hadn’t made it around to posting. The shot directly below was taken at Bryant park during our Christmas tree tour, by our friend Sam.

And here is the image from our Christmas card, this year. The photo card design was done by our friend Becca, who has mad skills.

Thursday evening we set out on a secret mission that I dubbed “project: snap tree.” We hit 6 trees, all in one evening. We started in DUMBO and worked our way up town, mixing in some burgers along the way. For the most part these shots were a combination of super long exposures with light painting (thanks for the idea on the light painting, Seth).

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It has been a rough couple of days, following the holiday. I have been stuck at the office basically non-stop since then. I did, however, take the opportunity to stop off at Houston St. on the way home last night and snap a couple of shots of the new Kenny Scharf mural going up.

Also, my college football team beat its biggest rival by one point (I watched the whole thing in a conference room peeking over my monitor at the screen).

I was able to breakout on Saturday night in time to go to dinner with Reagan, and have a late night hangout session with some friends. Today, I’m back in the office.  I’m hoping to get out of here before it gets late, though.

Here is one additional look at the mural (which I will continue to snap updates of [something to stay on the edge of your seat about, hehe])

Of course no holiday is complete without some good old fashioned family togetherness time. We had a blast hanging out with Piper on Thanksgiving morning. When we showed up, her nurse had dressed her in a super festive little outfit, complete with an orange ribbon in her hair. She was walking around by her crib acting as cute as possible (above).  She was being equal parts playful and snuggly.

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For whatever reason, Piper is obsessed with shoes and feet. In this case, she could not get over my boots. I had them propped up on the top of her mini-piano, and she jumped out of Reagan’s lap to come check them out. When I started playing peek-a-boo, by opening and closing my feet, so that she could see my face, it was too much for her to handle. She was cracking up.

We also did horsey rides and a modified version of airplane rides. Check Reagan’s blob for a video of that action. A few more photos from our T-day visit with Piper (and T-day generally), over here.

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!

What I meant was, I didn’t have any digital Halloween photos. I did, however bring along the trust Polaroid to the Halloween party. When I say “the Halloween Party,” as far as I am concerned, there might as well only be one. We get together with the same group of friends pretty much every year (except for those who moved away ). Anyway, here are a few shots that I scanned. The shot of Parking Man and Scissor Girl, was actually taken by Edward Scissor Hands (that dude has some serious dexterity for being of the scissorhanded persuasion).

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The weekend was a good one. I’m not a person who get’s really amped about Halloween. So, Reagan made up the gap and put together a costume for me, since I had to end up working most of the day Saturday anyway. I was “parking man.” I didn’t get any photos. I’m sure that Reagan will put a few up at some point. BTW, Reagan is one of the people who says “costchewm,” while I pronounce it “costoom.” So, I snicker every time I hear her say it. Back on point–check out the photos of Piper at her Halloween parade, if you haven’t already.

Despite having to work, and the other activities of the weekend, we were able to spend some really fun time with Piper. One of my favorite photos of the weekend, is above. Piper was trying to crawl underneath a chair, without taking her eyes off of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Skills, I tell you.

Piper was in an awesome mood both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we had a tickle/hangout session before Piper was worn out and decided to take a nap.

^—tickles… and the nap –

Sunday, some of our good friends, Sam and Anna came to meet Piper for the first time. Here is Piper hanging out with Anna and Reagan.

One more item of note, is Piper’s new silver moccasins. She loves them. Sometimes she feels like she can’t inspect them closely enough.

For the rest of the photos from our Piper visits this weekend, go here.

Friday, I shot the opening of the new TH store in SoHo. It was a pretty cool setup. I really liked the image above.  Saturday morning, Reagan and I worked on shooting another tutorial for her hair blog. It was fun, because we had a couple of our friends over, giving us a hand with it. It felt a lot more like just hanging out with friends, than it did work, which is always nice.

Saturday afternoon, we visited Piper. We only brought the Polaroid in with us. We took several shots of us hanging out with Piper, then laid them on the top of her transparent crib roof, so that she could see them when she looks up. It seems like she really likes them. We let her hold the prints and look at them, first. But, she ends up trying to fold them in half when they are in her little hands too long. Hahahah.

After our Piper visit, we continued up to Norwalk CT to hang out with one of our good Friends. We grilled out and went to bed kind of early, since we had a 13 mi run scheduled in the morning. The run was Awesome! We went all through Norwalk and Darien, along the water. The weather was fantastic! Afterward, we had lunch at this little place on the water.

In the afternoon, we hung out with Piper again. She was a little grouchy at first, but quickly warmed up and was all smiles. This shot below was probably the cutest one of the day. Reagan has been trying to teach Piper about hugging. I don’t know if she really “gets it” yet.  Reagan has to position Piper’s arms, etc.. Even if Piper doesn’t fully grasp what is going on, it is pretty apparent that she is enjoying the process.

Here for a few additional shots of our visit with PJ.

Monday, true to Labor Day form, we took naps, watched a movie, hung out and made cookies. No complaints, here.

Thursday night, I went to New Jersey. That isn’t really a big deal, in itself, since I go to NJ about 4 times per week on average. This time, though, it wasn’t just a run across the George Washington to Fort Lee. I actually took NJ Transit (above), and went to a little town near Newark. Deep Jersey. Snooki/Jerseylicious Jersey. Hahahah. I was there to shoot an interview with the famed tattoo artist Jun Cha, who I errantly reported earlier this week operates out of NJ. He is really a dude born and bred in So. Cal. trained by the likes of Mr. Cartoon. Anyway, here are a few of the shots from the interview:

The dude does traditional So Cal black and grey, in photo-realistic style. If I were ever to get a tattoo (which I never would), this is probably the dude that I would hit up.

Back to the matter at hand.. We are supposed to be blasted by Hurricane Earl on Friday. Hurricane season is the time of year that I suffer the pangs of being a poseur, past-prime surfer. Last time I checked the surf report it was like, double overhead at Coney Island. CONEY ISLAND! DOUBLE OVERHEAD! Can you imagine getting a barrel at Coney? This is the one time of  year where you are more likely to die at Coney by being swallowed by the ocean, than by getting stabbed while waiting in line at the Wonder Wheel. We aren’t even talking the point at Montauk. There is going to be some serious Mark Foo stuff going on out at that end of the island, this weekend. Last time I surfed double overhead, I was a 19 year old resident of the aloha state. These days I am a landlubbing surfboardless Manhattanite. So depressing.

On a less depressing hurricane season note, I watched my University of Utah football team eek out a nail biting season opener against Pitt, on Thursday night. How awesome is college football? I seriously love it.

Just when I could really really use a three day weekend, Labor Day comes along. We have a banger lined up, too. Some items on the agenda include: Party for TH opening a new store in SoHo; Multiple PJ visits; hanging out in the country (Rural CT); a long training run with tight amigos (also in the country); watching the GP race at Misano; a dip in the pool; a fun editorial shoot;  and, some barbecue. Have a fantastic weekend, peeps. And if you end up surfing Montauk this weekend, don’t tell me about it. Because I may accidentally punch you, out of pathetic jealousy.