Update and Interview

As anticipated, I had a very busy summer working on a professional project. But, we did find time to go to Orlando to celebrate the kids’ birthdays, and visit my sister and her family in New Orleans.

We had a near miss with Hurricane Dorian last month that is making us have second thoughts about scheduling AJ and JJ’s bar mitzvahs for Labor Day weekend 2020. The kids are now back to school in 1st and 7th grade and doing well.

I recently gave an interview to Gareth Johnson for the LGBT website meanshappy.com (get it?). I answered some frequently asked questions about being gay dads through surrogacy, but also delved a bit into politics. You can read the whole interview here.

Happy Fathers Day


Just in time for Pride Month and Father’s Day, I submitted a story to Love What Matters about our journey to fatherhood and marriage. It was adapted from my chapter in Eric Rosswood’s book published a few years back. Thanks to Becky at Love What Matters for publishing the piece. It was understandably edited down a bit due to length. I’m going to share the entire piece below. Someday, maybe I’ll expand our story further and write a book…

Spring Break Vacation

It looks like I will be very busy with work this summer, so Josh and I decided to use the opportunity of spring break to take a family vacation. We know most people like to head somewhere tropical for spring break. But we’re Floridians, so we decided to go to the frigid north instead!

We went to New York where we got to spend some time with my parents out on Long Island. We made a couple excursions into the city to have authentic Chinese food that’s scarce in Florida, take the kids to their first Broadway shows, and treat DJ to her first visit to the American Girl store.

Next, we drove upstate where the kids all saw snowfall for the first time. AJ and JJ are now pretty adept at skiing, so they had fun at Hunter Mountain with their uncle and cousins. DJ and MJ had their first time on skis with a private lesson. We hope that starting them young will help them ski as well as their older brothers soon.

All in all, we had a great time seeing members of both sides of the family we don’t see often enough, and experiencing many firsts that we hope will be great memories for all the kids.

Our Family Summer 2018

Our summer began with back to back birthday celebrations, and ended with some quality time with both sides of our extended family. Both sets of twins had birthday pool parties at our home on consecutive weekends. We enjoyed summer day camp where I was able to drop all four kids off in the same place for 7 weeks before DJ and MJ start elementary school, and JJ and AJ move on to middle school. I think I was more excited about that than the kids were. Next, we had a family reunion with Josh’s side of the family in upstate New York. Finally, we went on a Caribbean cruise and brought along my newly retired parents. It was an enjoyable summer, and now we are looking forward to the next big challenges…kindergarten and 6th grade!

Thanksgiving 2017

Like every year, I am most thankful for my family and friends. But this year especially, I am thankful that my parents are now both retired and free to enjoy all their grandchildren. That includes my sister’s family, because she and my brother in law are expecting another next year!