I'm pretty sure I couldn't have possibly napped more than I did during Kylie and I's 3 day visit to Indiana over Christmas to visit her family.  I mean, I think her parents are still waiting for my body imprint to come out of their La-Z-Boy.  This was pretty much how my schedule went while we were there.  Eat - nap - snack - watch some TV - eat more - snack - watch TV - put a few pieces of the 1000 piece puzzle together - graze - snack (if I wasn't napping) - nap - go to bed.  Get up next day and repeat.  It was the best 3 days of the year.  I seriously haven't felt as relaxed and rested for as long as I can remember as I did after our trip. I did manage to squeeze in a little walk in between naps on Christmas Eve day, if only to prove I didn't sleep the whole time I was in Indiana. Funny little story about this first image.  Who says photography's not a contact sport?  I was inspired recently by friend and super-talented fellow Dallas photogapher Jen Weintraub and her photo of an adorable little girl on a spinning merry-go-round, and when I spied one near the police station in downtown Princeton, I thought I'd give it a try. Now, I was the only one around, so no cute little models in fun clothes were available to spruce up this image, so I'm already -3 points.  Anyway, let me paint you a visual.  Close your eyes and imagine me leaned in holding my camera in the center of the merry-go-round with the other hand on one of the outer rails.  I've got one foot on the merry-go-round (so I can reach the center with my camera) while the other is pushing on the wet stone/grass around this death wheel to generate the motion that will give this pullitzer the motion blur.  Got that in your head?  Good.  Well, it lasted about 3/4 of a revolution before my wet shoe slipped off the merry-go-round.  Now I was faced with a dllemna... I've got a rather expensive camera & lens in one hand, and my other is precariously still holding on to the rail.  I'm starting to go down and I can either A) let the camera go to help brace my fall with that hand and probably come out unscathed, B) take my non-camera hand off the rail it was on and try and break my fall on the merry-go-round platform while my knees likely drag in the wet grass and stone or C) keep my camera hand on the camera and my other hand on the rail and break my fall with my shin on the edge of the platform and my chin on the next rail over.  I ask you, what would you have done?  I chose C... and all the ungraceful glory that came with it. I'm just glad there wasn't anyone around to see my merry-go-round fail.  I popped right back up (biting my lip and shedding a tear on the inside because of the sharp pains in my knee and chin) and went about my business like nothing happened just in case someone might've seen the debacle from a nearby window.  In any case, was it worth it for the image below?  I say yes.

Here's the courthouse in the quaint little downtown square.

We drove 120 miles round trip today to pick up a fruitcake for my father-in-law.  Got to see how they make these 'cakes' at the famous Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, TX.  That was pretty cool.  The taste?  Not so much. Who eats these things?  No, sersiously.  Who eats these things?  [Garry - if you're reading this - this is one instance where I'm glad the proverbial apple fell far from the fruit cake tree] Kylie semi-bribed me into going on this mini-roadtrip by telling me I could bring my camera.  Ironically, after just finishing up the fall/holiday phtography season, picking up my camera wasn't near the top of my list.  I did find this old, abandoned house off the highway, though, that I thought might make some interesting images.  So we stopped by and while Kylie went through her weekly coupon regiment in the car (which, btw, led to a 51% savings at the grocery store later in the day), I jumped out and flirted with chiggers and field mice to capture these images.  As I'm writing this, Kylie is telling me to tell the internet that she was the one who pointed out the piano sitting in the tall grass.  Sooo, on the count of three everyone say it with me... Thank you, Kylie, for pointing out the piano sitting in the tall grass.  For the record, I kinda think I maybe just mighta noticed it, too, (it's the dark object by the tree on the far right in the image below), but if this gets me an extra present under the tree, I'm happy to do it.

A bit of a rebel image, this one is.  Heading back to Dallas this morning,  and while all electronic devices were supposed to be turned off, my iPhone bucked the system and discetely put his mug to the window to fire this one off.  (Color obviously massaged in Photochop).

Ahhh, back in the USA, and workin' to get caught up.  If you've followed the last couple days, you know we were in Cancun celebrating my friend Tina's 40th birthday as well as a handful of other November birthdays amongst friends, and you know the weather was, well, IDA'ish.  I ate enough resort food for the next year... for 3 people.  My elbow and ankle are on the mend from my [not-so] graceful Segway mishap.  And my camera is likely rusting away as we speak from all the salt water spray she encountered while trying to get a few beach images in 40mph winds.  Oh, and one of the more impressive and embarrassing factoids about the trip was that Kylie polished off two lengthy books in the span of three and a half days while we were there... impressive because in total she read about 900 pages; embarrassing because I managed to read a total of about 4 dinner menus. I'll finish off the Cancun trip with a random collection of images from the last couple days.

Looking up at one of the chandeliers in the lobby.

A summary of our stay in Cancun.

Here's the gang.  These next two were taken by an airline pilot.

These next three shots were inspired my the photographic genius of my buddy Jeff (pictured in the image below).  I had set my camera down and walked away after doing a 3 second exposure of the resort theater where we did Tina's surprise birthday celebration (see next to last photo below), and he had picked it up and started firing off a few images not realizing it was set in manual and for such a long exposure time.  Most of the images were a whole lotta blurry (I mean art, Jeff), but in one frame someone had taken a photo in the background with a point-n-shoot camera, and the flash from that shot had temporarily frozen the action in one of Jeff's shots.  The result was pretty serendipitously cool, so I had my friend Laurie come over with her point-n-shoot camera and we recreated the set-up... again and again and again...  (Sorry I drained your battery, Laurie, but hey, you did end up with about 20 random profile shots of a couple people!)  To recap, I had Laurie stand about to one side or the other of the subject, and after I pressed the shutter release for a three second exposure while hand-holding the camera, I told Laurie to fire her camera so I could use her flash to light the subjects.   First up, Jeff and his gangst look.

Then the birthday star, Tina.

And finally back to Jeff moving in on Kylie.

Here's the theater Jerry and Tammy talked the hotel into letting us use for a pre-dinner party for Tina at no cost, with a DJ and bartender included.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering since i did have a few questions about this on Facebook, we stayed at the Hotel Riu Palace Las Americas.

Weather has delayed our flight back to Dallas for 5 hours.  Here's a few more images from the trip during our layover. Don't let this first one full you.  It was taken within 20 minutes of when we got here.  We haven't seen the sun since.