I’m so totally excited to report that James was named Sacramento Valley “Portrait Photographer of the Year” once again! He received this great honor at our local Professional Photographer’s of America (PPA) affiliate annual dinner/awards banquet, held at Lucca Restaurant dowtown last Friday night. To put the icing on the cake, the image below (of our own Reilly!), titled “Her Day Will Come”, also was named “Image of the Year”! We are both thrilled at the honor of these awards and couldn’t have done it without all of our amazing clients, who are so critical in many of the award-winning images James has produced over the years. We share this award with all of you, and you know who you are!

The San Diego Zoo. It had been a while since Stef and I took the girls here and Miss T didn’t really remember it at all. I expected much marvel and amazement from them as we walked about looking at the wild beasts. Not today.

Apparently the HD series “Planet Earth” the girls have been hooked on did its job a little too well.

“Yeah, I’ve seen those dad.” And off they went to climb on stuff….lots of stuff. I don’t remember having to tell them so many times to get off something. It was just silly.

They were acting like…animals. That’s it. Time to get out of there before this Lord of the Flies adventure gets any more serious. We made our way back to the entrance. Time for one last potty stop.

Thankfully they remembered how to do THAT like civilized children.

“Dad, when can we come back?”

I still haven’t answered that one.

New years day we were invited to a swineriffic party at my sister and brother-in-law’s house which included a good old fashioned deep pit pig BBQ.

WARNING!!! Vegetarians and members of PETA please skip to the next blog post.

Chris (brother in law) was really excited about this event… REALLY excited. He and my brother spent the better part of a week digging the pit and preparing for this. I called him New Years eve to see how things were going and the conversation went something like this.

“Hey Chris, how’s things going?”

“GREAT, what are you guys doing tonight?”

“Oh you know, dinner in La Jolla and maybe a club.”

“Well, what are you guys doing after? You should totally come over! We’re going to sit up all night and watch the pig roast. I’ts going to be awesome!!!”

Now, I just love Chris. But I didn’t have the heart to tell him watching a dead animal smolder on a hot bed of coal wasn’t exactly what I imagined Stef and I would be doing to reign in the new year.

So I gave the old college response…”maybe we’ll stop by…”

Well, we didn’t make it by that night, but we did show up the next day and what a great party it was. Wilbur came off the coals about 2pm and the feast was on. I think Reilly ate more than any of us!

Thanks to all who put that together, we had a wonderful time.

Uncle Mike chasing Reilly with the snout.

I don’t know what this meant but every time I lifted the camera, Mike and Chris did this.

We hit the road day after Christmas to visit the family in San Diego and what better way to spend a winter day than at Coronado beach. The plan was dinner at the Brig and a visit to the Hotel Del. Well…the minute the girls saw sand, they were gone.

I mean gone.

After about a minute, Stef said “I don’t thing they are coming back”. So off I went. Fortunately with camera in hand…

By the way, we made the dinner reservation…complete with sand tracks all the way to the table.

Well after enough “Dad can I play with your iphone?” comments, Santa decided to make us a 3G family this Christmas…

Stef’s mom was nice enough to bestow a pair of ipod touch’s to the girls saving Stef and I some unnecessary headaches with our iphones. Bravo. Our family of nerdness is now complete…

Now if I want a weather forecast I simply have to turn to the backseat and ask Reilly.

Our home hasn’t heard such silence in a while, and I’ve never seen the girls so eager to be sequestered to a remote corner with no desire to be bothered.

Apple rules…

Stef and I took the girls on the Polar Express train in Old Sac last night and what an impression it made on them. If you have kids under the age of six, I would highly recommend this as it can be quite the magical thing.

Reilly is six. Just the age when some of the older kids in school try to debunk the existence of Santa. If I could get a hold of any of these kids I would…express my displeasure in their communication regarding these matters. That being said, Reilly approached the trip to the North Pole with a mild amount of skepticism, but was excited nonetheless.

When the train arrived at the “North Pole”, the first thing Reilly said was “Wow, Santa has lost weight.” Fearing the worst, I really turned on the excitement, desperately trying to distract her from anything mundane. Moments later, Santa entered our rail car. Teagan was overjoyed, Reilly remained fairly calm. He passed out jingle bells to all the kids and gave his ho-ho-ho’s and at one point he stopped, looked at Reiily and said, “I got your letter…you must have written that a couple of days ago.”

I was sitting behind her, and all I saw was her head nodding. She turned around and had a smile that remained present the rest of the evening.

Now, not wanting to get myself into a trap, I didn’t address Santa’s question to Reilly. I later found out from Stef that two days prior, Reilly and her classmates had all written letters to the big guy.

I felt like Fred Gailey on Miracle on 34th Street. I don’t know how much longer we have, but this year, she believes.

The last image was taken after Santa had left the car and the hobo character (from the film) walked through, stopped and said, “How many of you believe?”

I think Reilly’s hand was higher that anyone’s…except mine.

Teagan’s first Christmas show.

As I stood outside the auditorium doors with dozens of eager parents, I had one thought in mind. Get good seats.

We arrived plenty early so we could get nice and close. The doors opened and we- waitaminute…there were already a ton of people inside! Must have been two ways in. So, Stef and I did what any respectable parents would do.

We ran.

Short of knocking people over, we plowed our way through groups of frantic parents and secured seats in the.. 20th row.

20th row!!! This would not do. I said my farewells to Stef and embarked on a mission to get closer even if I had to sit alone. As I stood in the front of the auditorium desperately searching for a seat, something caught my eye. An open seat in the front row, dead center.

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”

“Nope, it’s all yours.”

I spent the next few minutes in my best Rocky Balboa pose, arms in the air. Ok, time to get ready, the show’s about to begin. I unpacked the camera equipment and all the other gadgets and was good to go. Lights go down and out come the kiddies.

As they took the stage it became quite clear to me why this choice seat I was in had been available. I couldn’t see. The sound equipment nearly covered my view of Teagan’s class.

No seats around me and nowhere to go, I sat there, helplessly hoping to get a view.

Well, I did manage to get a few photographs of our starlet, but after a short while I gave up on the effort and put the camera away. Now, with everything packed up there was nothing left to do…except enjoy the show!!! And I did.

Sometimes it’s best to just spend the time watching your kids be kids. Thank you to all the teachers and assistants who helped in the show, it was fantastic!!

Miss T warming up.

Hey Teagan, tell us how you really feel about the show!

…are better left to others. Still reeling from the Halloween gingerbread house failure, the girls and I decided to give it another try. Stef picked up a ‘smaller and easier to build’ version this time so things should run smoothly.

Well…

It was about ten minutes into the assembly when Teagan looked up and said “I think this house has seen better days.”

At that point I made the executive decision to abandon the construction and eat all the candy decorations.

I got no arguments…

We are in the middle of some administrative work on the blog and will resume posting very soon. Please stay tuned…

Old Roseville finally has a proper Irish pub, and when we heard the grand opening was last night, we just had to check it out. We had some yummy deep fried corned beef rolls, deep fried tater skins, and deep fried Irish chips…my tummy hurts today..

Here’s the coolest part. The pub is located about 20 yards from the railroad tracks, and every time a train goes by, there are different drink and food specials…but you’ve got to order WHILE the train is moving, and the specials are off if the train stops!

Check out the groovy red hallway to the men’s room.