Bugs, sand and other yummy stuff

Nikki, Zoe and Paige went to Toy -Joy here in Austin last week to get some vegan ice-cream. Zoe wanted sprinkles and the lady behind the counter warned that they are not vegan or vegetarian.

Nikki: "How can sprinkles not be vegetarian?"

Lady behind counter: “The shiny coating is called shellac, which is made of bugs, and the red ones get their coloring from another type of smashed up bug".

Yummy!

http://webecoist.com/2009/05/08/10-weird-and-gross-ingredients-in-processed-food/

Zoe Photos

Our friend Valarie recently took some great photos of Zoe for her photography portfolio. You can visit her site at www.valarielcampbell.com

Sisters

I love these photos. The last photo, the look on Paige's face is even funnier when you know that Zoe took her arm and said lovingly "I'm going to eat you up".

My NYC girl

This is Skip, Im off to NYC for the weekend to try out for a reality show, should be interesting. Nikki and the girls are staying here in Austin.

It will be kind of hard being there without Nikki. I have so many memories of various places in NYC that are strongly associated with Nikki, where we worked, places we hung out together, places we acted silly together, our restaurants, places we took Zoe as a baby.

Nikki made a lot of really good friends in NY, she fit in NYC better than any place we have ever lived. She knows her way around the subway system like a pro, and she can walk through a condensed crowd like a fish moves in water. When we had Nikki's 30th birthday party at Gobos in the Village last year, I was amazed at how many friends she had, the whole table was full of her buddies, when they sang happy birthday the restaurant became quite the song was so loud. The reason I’m saying all this is that it will be strange being in NYC this weekend without her, because Nikki is more of a New Yorker than I could ever dream of being, and all those places I see in the city that I associate with her, the memories will come back and she wont be there to share them with ( I guess I can always call her though).

Peak-a-Boo

Photos from the summer so far.

Happy Anniversary and Birthday

This July 2nd was our 9 year anniversary. Things I remember about our wedding day was Nikki bouncing up and down, how beautiful she was in her dress, all the friends and family we talked to that day. I remember when we both drank from the wine glass, how funny it was when Nikki took a little sip and handed me a full glass of wine to down in front of everyone. It was a day full of excitement and happiness. Nikki and I have done a lot of amazing things, been a lot of places and had a lot of wonderful experiences in the past 9 years, and I’m looking forward to the next 9 as well. I can say that the 3 best experiences of my life have been the day I married Nikki, and watching my 2 daughters be born.

We went to an early dinner at Mothers Vegetarian Restaurant to celebrate.

On July 3rd we had another big celebration, Zoe turned 3! We let Zoe pick out where she wanted to go for lunch, and it was no surprise, she said, "I want to go to Chuys". Chuys is a great Tex-Mex place here in Austin, and its Zoes favorite place to eat. Zoe opened up some presents and had some cupcakes from Wholefoods. We are extremely proud of our little rock star Zoe.

Its about 7:30 am as I write this blog. I was up at 5 this morning and took a sleeping Paige (in her car seat) to Barton Springs to swim. It was great. There was only about 5 people swimming (Barton Springs is really large swimming area). It was still night, the stars were still in the sky, the sun was turning the horizon a lighter shade of blue, the cold water straight from inside the Earth was very cold, and bats were flying overhead. Paige slept in her car seat while I swam around for a while. Im going to try to do that more often, it was a great way to start the day.

Paige is doing great. She is getting bigger, smiling, talking to us, and taking everything in. She has the sweetest voice and very deep, beautiful eyes.

This morning we have a tricycle parade to go to, should be fun. We are going to try and keep the kiddos up to see fireworks tonight, we will see how that goes. And tomorrow is Zoe's birthday party! Tomorrow night we are going on a bat cruise.

Sophie is fitting right in with the other cats. I have seen her playing with Miro many times now, and laying close to Napoleon on the couch. She is a funny girl with lots of energy, and I love the way she makes Zoe giggle.

I'll be in Dallas next weekend to pick up my artwork from my solo show at Northlake, and I have an opening reception to attend at Dahlia Woods, its a group show with 11 other artists.

In a couple of weeks I will be heading up to my old stomping grounds of NYC for the weekend. Im trying out for a reality TV show. Should be an interesting experience! Hopefully while Im up there I can meet up with some friends I haven’t seen in a while.