Animal Adventures

A few weeks ago, on our first trip nice weather trip to the Hamptons, we took Sloan to a petting zoo. She isn't talking yet, but makes an awful lot of animal noises, so we figured this would be quite the adventure for her.

We bought a bucket of feed, decided against the bottle of milk for the goats, and were off to meet the animals. There were pigs, goats, ducks, ponies, chickens, a massive camel, even wallabies and llamas. Sloan wasn't so sure about it all at first. The fact the animals could stick their mouths through the fence was a bit much for her. That Dad was actually feeding them was even more! She loved running around taking it all in; she even got to pet a bunny rabbit and ride a pony (with Dad's help of course). By the end she was brave enough to go into the goat pen, and Dad saved just enough feed to attract all of them. Success!!

Smelly pigs!

Lil' Sebastian

Open road...

Family selfie

Sloan's first pony ride

Not so sure about the goats 

Goat attack! 

Fun at the zoo! 

All in all it was a successful first zoo trip. We also went to the Central Park Zoo with Courtney & Oakley for Mother's Day. It wasn't quite as successful, but she had fun nonetheless. We saw penguins, and I think she was afraid they were going to come through the glass. Perhaps an actual petting zoo wasn't the best first experience!

One final video from our petting zoo experience:

We like to climb stairs

Sloan is a BIG fan of stairs. Here are some of her latest antics at Uncle Richard's house in Bridgehampton.

New Year's on the Eastern Front...

Possibly one of the most overrated places to be on New Year's Eve, which is already and overrated holiday, is New York City. Anyone in their right mind (who doesn't live in Manhattan) stays as far away as possible and those who do have the privilege of living in Manhattan know it best to repel themselves from midtown like good music from a Creed concert. Forget Times Square and the ball drop. Seriously, forget it. Watch it on TV. The only reason to be out on New Year's Eve is if you are carrying a stolen copy of the frozen orange juice crop report. But I digress.

Two days after arriving back in NYC from The Atlanta Christmas Adventure, we packed up Randy's car (thank you again, Uncle Randy Pants) and headed to the magical place known as Dick's Bridgehampton. Over the past two years we have been lucky enough to join Richard and friends at his Eastern Outpost on summer weekends and the occasional early fall jaunt but this year it was to be a New Year's Fiesta. At least as much of one that can be had with a newborn.

We had our first snow...

It wasn't much snow but a good first exposure.
No chance for a snowman this time.

Deer sightings...

Sloan wonders what we were making her look at

Dick's back yard. There were as many as seven at one time.

Masterfully crafted dinners....

Straight from the Adam Perry Lang collection -
grilled lamb, polenta and asparagus salad

New Year's Even dinner was another APL special -
grilled-on-coals tenterloin, salt and vinegar
duck fat fries (with home made salt),
creamed roast garlic spinach and special salad

Popcorn Sundae for dessert

The Eastern Front Celebrants around the dinner table.

These dishes aren't going to do themselves.

Holiday cocktails...

Hooray for a New Year!

Special cocktail of the night

and even time for an art lesson...

Dad describing the work of elusive street artist Banksy.

At the end of 2012, Kerri and I did our best to reflect, realize and give thanks as to how lucky we are to have the best daughter, the best families and the best friends on Earth. Seasons will come and go, years will tick by and we will get older but every day is better for us than the last and we are truly thankful to be living in this moment. It's our only hope that we can make the absolute best of what we have in front of us. Here's to a great 2013!

Stars & Stripes

It's been brought to my attention that I've been slack blogger lately (Hi Casey!), so I'm going to try to get a quick update in. Figured 4th of July is as fun of a time as any to tell you about! We went back out to Bridgehampton for the 4th. Its become an annual thing for us lately - 3rd year in a row as a matter of fact. With July 4th falling on a Wednesday the schedule was sort of weird, but we managed to make the best of our time 'out East'. 

Tuesday night was our annual fireworks spectacular in Southhampton (I think. All the Hamptons run together for me). Our friend loves going to the festival there, so everyone bought tickets & risked their lives on the rides (while one of us watched from the ground). 

The crew on the Whirly Bird ride. Barry looks like he's having fun back there, but was pretty miserable once he got off. 

There was one ride I could go on: the ferris wheel! After waiting in line for a bit, we had perfect timing - the fireworks started once we started going around & around.

The 4th itself was relatively low key. Just a day by the pool and some BBQ on on the grill. Not sure the picture does the ribs justice, but they were fab. Richard donned his usual shirt: "America: Love it or leave it.". Like the trip itself, its become an annual thing...

The rest of the weekend was a mix of work and pool time. Nothing too crazy on the docket that particular weekend. We did partake in a helluva meal on Saturday though. Barry and Heath (the resident chefs) are big fans of Adam Perry Lang. APL recently came out with a new cookbook, so they were anxious to give it a shot. Just to give you an idea the level of cooking APL requires, we had an arugula salad that was billed as "the simplest recipe" in the book...it had 12 ingredients. They chose a few different recipes to try out, and I'm not going to lie - it was the best meal they've ever prepared.

10 lbs of steak and Barry had to bludgeon it with a rolling pin. These were cooked on the firepit out by the pool. 

The full meal: moonshine onion rings, steaks, arugula salad and vegetables.

Finally, you'll remember from the May/June archives that Barry started building a bar/storage unit for the house. It took 3-4 different weekends, but here is the final product!

A man and his creation. 

Ta da!