Let’s see what Artie the Shelf Elf has been up to since his arrival on Friday…

Yeah, this little gem – the KitchenAid peeler/slicer – made quick work of prepping apple pies this year.

Perhaps it’s time to dispose of the pumpkins.

While perusing Instagram, I discovered an online service that allows you to customize a Peanuts-inspired Christmas ornament.

For the second year in a row, Nathan opted to have his friends birthday party celebrated at Urban Air, a local, indoor adventure and trampoline park.

I thought I’d take a moment to throw some of our Halloween-related photos your way.

The three of us were planning on doing a Halloween theme cosplay of characters from Jurassic Park/Jurassic World this year. Katie was going to be Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), Nate would be Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and I would be Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight).

22 years ago — under similarly downpouring conditions — Katie made me the happiest person alive by marrying me.

It’s so funny how obsessed I’ve become with Sam the little burlap-sack-headed kid from the cult favorite Halloween horror film Trick ‘r Treat.

Thank you, Walmart (words you won't hear me say often), for providing me with the base design for what will surely become one of my Jack-o-lanterns this year!

He’s 11! Freaking 11! How in the name of all that’s holy did that happen?!?!

As I posted on Saturday, Nathan and I went out to Spirit Halloween and American Science & Surplus checking out Halloween costumes and decorations and the like. He's been struggling trying to figure out what to dress as this Halloween so I thought we could take a look at what was available.

My wife just informed me that the wait for the Mario Kart 3D ride at Universal Studios Hollywood is only about 75 minutes!

Happy birthday, 'Murica. You're not at all the country I was raised in or led to believe is a big, beautiful home that is open to all. Instead, you're quickly becoming a morass of violence, hate, bigotry, and just general ill will. 

Guess what... my blog can legally vote as of today! Yup, I've been on the Typepad platform for 18 years now since after making the choice to ditch my manually-coded HTML weblog that I'd been running since 1998 (the contents of which I migrated here about a decade or so ago).

I can’t believe I didn't shared this in one of my earlier vacation photo posts. It was the time when Nathan was chosen by a great wizard to receive his first wand at Ollivander’s Wand Shop at Harry Potter World in Universal Studios Hollywood.

And here are a bunch of random pictures from our vacation in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Fort Bragg.

Okay, I lied a little yesterday when I said I wasn’t going to recap our vacation at all. I will. Just a little. In the form of photos. These are from the second leg of our trip, which was down in Los Angeles, specifically Universal Studios Hollywood and Funko HQ Hollywood.

I haven’t posted since May 17. We went on vacation on the 18th out to San Francisco, Berkeley, and Hollywood and just got back today.

I’m plotting out some travel things for an upcoming vacation we’re taking. Mostly trying to figure out what I do and don’t want to take with us.

Holy cow! Just about a month until we go on vacation. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown between hearing about the need to start planning this trip and actually freaking out about it happening. 

Nathan seemed to have a happy Easter today.

To our dearest Katie,

You are the most amazing wife, friend, partner, confidant, and mother these two otherwise hopeless boys could ask for. We love you with all our collective hearts (and then some). We’re not perfect, but we hope you can love us all the same.

Hey all! Just a quick note wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (ending tomorrow), Happy Kwanzaa (starting tomorrow), and a Happy New Year!

I love when you get to that critical mass of Christmas cards received that you can start to see the people who are using the same card templates.

It's my Torii Hunter Day!

I just realized I never shared a picture of us in our family Halloween costumes! We decided to play off Nathan’s C2E2 costume and went as DC Comics villains.

This one cracked me up to no end.

We do a fairly simple, yet fun, setup in front of our house for Halloween. Some pumpkins, a spinning light display, fake spider webbing that we added this year, a Frankenstein's monster painted decorative pumpkin on top of our tall arbor vitae, and a large inflated and internally lit Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Hey, Katie! Can you believe that today is our 21st anniversary? You’ve been married to me (translation: put up with but have not yet mortally wounded) for a legal drinker’s worth of years!

It’s a special Double-Post Monday (TM pending… not really). Why the special occasion? Because today is Nathan’s 10th birthday!!!

‘Tis the season!

We’re going on vacation soon and, in preparation, have been checking out the weather in the immediate future to try to gauge what to expect.

It’s so effing hot in Arizona. Gorgeous, but hot.

Spend this Friday the 13th with someone special.