I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a great time, with about 6 friends and family over for some turkey and football. I am glad to say that Texas won, but as an OU fan, I wish they had won by a smaller margin. Yea, we’re weird like that.

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to start getting ready for Christmas. All the decorations are in boxes in the garage ready to go. We hope to have it knocked out by this weekend. In the meantime, I’ve finished working on the official Doggett family ‘08 Christmas card! It was shot over a couple of days (apparently the models have pretty tight union contracts).

Check it out! Click the image for a larger version!

We just discussed our idea for ‘09 and added it to the calendar!!!
 
** update ** Lisa just informed me that each delicious slice of pumpkin cheesecake yesterday clocked in at an amazing 700 calories. The leftovers will end up in the trash.

Yesterday was a very interesting day! I received a call from a guy named Whurley. He needed some shots for a magazine interview, and needed them quick. He heard about me from a friend named Mike Neumann via Twitter. For those photographers that have been avoiding the whole Facebook/Twitter thing, this is an example of it paying off.

Whurley works for BMC and is a leader in the open-source IT community. We discussed some ideas on the phone (including incorporating his signature longboard) and started shooting at 9 PM in a downtown parking garage. I was definitely going for a Wired magazine vibe, and I think these shots came out great. We packed up around 12:30, and talked about doing some conceptual shoots in the future!

This one is my favorite!

About 8 hours after getting home from Saturday’s wedding, I was up and off to Gruene, Texas to shoot Chrystal and Mike’s engagement session! There wedding is coming up in April, and we decided to capture some great moments down in Gruene.

Starting off at Gruene Hall, which is a requirement for any aspiring country music star:

We also shot inside the famous Gristmill Restaurant, which has been a fixture in Gruene for 30 years!

The General Store has an awesome selection of fudge treats. I had to pick some up ‘for the kids at home’.

I am looking forward to their big day in April!!

Lauren and Matthew were married yesterday at Green Pastures in Austin, and it was one of the few weddings I’ve done that included a combined Jewish and Christian service. It was nice to see the different traditions coming together for this wonderful couple!

Green Pastures was already decorated for the coming holidays, so we took advantage of it! Lauren and Matt were troopers to stand out in the cold for some great shots!

After the ceremony was over, we snuck back outside:

I love the expressions here!

Up in the air they go!

Lauren’s dad gave a great toast, which was made up of several smaller toasts. He shared some great thoughts about his daughter and new son-in-law.

This week we paid another visit to the excellent D’Vine Wine in Lakeway. In case you are out of the loop, D’Vine Wine helps you make your own wine! They help you mix all the ingredients the way that you like it, and in a few weeks you’ve got enough for over 20 bottles (which they graciously supply with your own custom label!).

This week, they held one of their mozzarella tasting parties, and it was awesome. Being half-Italian, I am pretty particular about my mozzarella cheese. Thankfully, D’Vine didn’t disappoint. They brought in someone from Mandolas Market who knew his mozzarella. He went through all of the steps for preparing it.

First, you start with good mozzarella curd:

Make sure you have a good crowd watching:

Temperature is critical! And after a little bit of attention, you get Sumo Wrestler Underwear!

The final result - mahvelous mozzarella!

I’ve been testing out some new slideshow software, and I think I really like it! Here’s a short snippet from a recent family shoot:

Here’s one more of Rohni from a shoot several weeks ago. It’s a studio shot of her matched up against a shot of downtown. I was going for a Matrix vibe a little bit here.

Today I photographed Emilee, Jay and their wonderful family. They are our neighbors, and unfortunately our whole home development will go into deep depression as they are moving soon! Since they are leaving within a few weeks, we took this opportunity to get some family shots in and around their house.

We took some pictures up in the girls’ rooms.

We even got in some bed-jumping action.

The stairs shot started out peaceful enough:

And then Jay went in for the choke hold. Emilee starts to see giant bumblebees.

Their 2 daughters are very cute, and very well-behaved!

We wrapped up with a roadside portrait outside!

Good luck in New Mexico, Emilee and Jay! Let me know when you want to fly me out for more pictures! :)

Trevor turned 1 on 9/15/08! Yes, this post took a long time in coming. But I had to sift through the hundreds of award-winning images to select the very best for this series. He deserves nothing less.

We spent his official birthday at Zilker park downtown:

You can ride the cool train!

Here I am imitating Trevor’s standard ‘deer-in-headlights’ look.

Cake! We love cake!!!!

We had some pinata action going on, and here’s Brandon enjoying his booty:

Happy Birthday little man!!

November 3rd, 7 years ago, I got to marry the best woman in the world - Lisa! Have you heard about her? She totally rocks. She loves our boys. She loves animals. She makes a mean tortilla soup. She knows everything about college football, tivo and airline hubs. But, I am sorry to say that she is MINE ALL MINE! :)

Happy Anniversary Lis! I love you lots!!!! You and the boys are my favorite, best part of life!