[above: cousins and Amber on the highline]

When I lived in Waikiki as a youth, all of my Hawaiian friends were always talking about their cousins. Seriously, everyone was cousins with each other. And, they loved hanging out with each other. Well, I have roughly 1.6 million cousins (a very slight exaggeration). So, I sort of understood where they were coming from. Growing up, some of my fondest memories were getting into massive trouble with my cousins at some sort of family event. I come from a very deep extended family on both sides. I’m talking– deep. I have massive love for all of them, too. They are the salt of the earth types, who would go to great lengths to show support for their kin. I can’t count on both hands the times that my childhood house was packed beyond capacity with family members, many who traveled great distances to celebrate the birth of a child, a baptism, a graduation, etc..

Being that most of my family lives across the country, I love it when some of my blood related peeps come to town. It was just such an occasion, last week. My cousins Tiff and Amy were in town with their friend Amber. I was pretty stoked to be able to do some damage with them in NYC on Thursday night before they scurried off to visit other New England peeps on Friday. Our activities included hitting the highline from end to end (after dropping in on an event at the Reed annex).

[below: cousins and I attempting to spell out "NYC" with our fingers-- photo by: Amber]

My very skilled sister Sarah had some of her work featured on the cover of Etsy today. The featured item just happens to be a little piece named after Piper. So cool, right? Sarah’s shop is called bodhi handmade. I mentioned some of her work previously, when she created the special set to aid the Japan Tsunami relief. Anyway, congrats to Sarah. Definitely check out her stuff.

If these socks don’t last longer than a month, I don’t know what I’ll do. I feel like I’m supplying socks for the entire hospital sometimes.

My mom is an expert Grandma. She sends Piper Jane these gifts and they are 100% of the time Piper’s new favorite thing. This time, she sent this giant pink hippo that is both a pillow/sleeping bag and a toy. Piper was scared of it at first, but after Jake swung her around in it for a while, she warmed up to it.

Then she took a bump on a log style nap in it after watching a few episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba. She looked so cozy in that thing and I sort of got jeal’ that I didn’t have one.

The whole weekend with Pip was special and awesome and good.

Love,

Reags

We had a great weekend, with all sorts of patriotic activities. Sunday night, Reagan threw a bachelorette party for her friend who is getting married next weekend. I took the opportunity, while she was out, to build and install her new desk in the former guest bedroom.

She didn’t waste any time putting it to use.

Monday, we barbequed on the roof with our friends Joe, Jen and Frank (plus Nikki the dog) and lit sparklers. The sunset was basically the most amazing thing ever. Here are a few images from the festivities.

The shot below was some team work. Reag wrote “Happy,” Jen wrote “Fourth.”

The next photo was all my idea (haha). Frank shot it for us.

You will probably recognize my hand style on this one.

Anyway, enough bragging about the wife. Today was one of those days where I didn’t waste one minute. I woke up at 5:30, Moved the car. Came home and changed into running gear, went for a run. After showering, I packed a messenger bag (with work clothes, camera and bike lock), took the train to Brooklyn. In Brooklyn, I stopped by M. Cuomo’s old apartment and picked up a bike that Mike left for me with his former roomie. From there, I rode across the Williamsburg Bridge, cross town, and down to the FiDi for work. I tried out the new parking area inside of the gated parking garages at my building. It was amazing. No anxiety about the bike getting ripped off, all day long. I was super busy, at the office, which made the day fly by. I know this is getting boring, but I must continue. After work, I rode to a gallery to shoot an opening. Then rode home. I have spent the rest of the evening setting up my new laptop that Reagan and Piper got me for Father’s Day. I’m writing this post from that very computer. The end.

With Reagan off gallivanting around Chicago, Piper and I have spent the last couple of days maximizing our daddy daughter time. Sunday, we went for a walk outside. Lately all she wants to do when she isn’t riding on my shoulders, is try to figure out how to climb back up onto my shoulders. Apparently she never get’s bored up there. She just settles in and is appears to be totally content, even if we are just sitting around enjoying the weather. When we were walking back across the parking lot to go inside, she was walking and holding my hand. It was still relatively early in the morning, so there were some long shadows. Piper was mesmerized by hers. It was so cute to watch her try to figure out what was going on with the whole shadow situation. I could imagine her in her head “what is that little grey thing on the ground that looks just like me and copies my movements?” So cute.

And here is one more shot of her watching a bird through the glass, while doing a sassy pose. These are both blackberry cam shots, hence the poor quality. But it is tough to carry a Piper and a big camera. Plus sometimes it is nice to have a break from photo duty.

We had a great visit with Piper on Saturday. I think that she did miss me. She was definitely jonesing for some shoulder rides. We had a super busy morning, so we hung out with PJ pretty much all afternoon, into the evening. We gave her a bath and put her in her PJs, then tucked her in. She was nothing less than absolutely adorable throughout then entire visit. I included some shots of bath time, below.

And finally.. probably my favorite shots of the day–

I’ll try to do this chronologically. Our trip got off to a rough start when thunderstorms delayed our flight to SLC by about 8 hours. So, we finally left NYC around 2 AM Eastern and landed in SLC around 4:30 Mountain. Luckily my younger brother had no problem staying up all night and picking us up. We figured that even though we hadn’t had much sleep, we would just stay awake and fire off a power nap later, if needed.

After having a super early breakfast with some of the fam, we went flying in my dad’s plane (the shot above is my dad taking care of some pre-flight stuff). Here is Wally below, wearing the game face.

Northern Wasatch range, and the Great Salt Lake:

Cache Valley:

The Spiral Jetty, at the Great Salt Lake:

Mount Timpanogos:

Three happy aviators:

I also went back through the photos and had a chance to properly edit them (on a normal sized calibrated monitor). Here is a link to the Spain photos. Here is a link to the Paris photos.

Man, it was good to be back and see Piper over the weekend. She was super cute and in a good mood both days. We mostly just lounged around, had some shoulder rides, watched movies and snuggled. Good times.