Happy Holidays at Decade’s End

At the end of this year and decade, we have had the opportunity to host both sides of our extended family at our home in Florida.

First, my parents, sister and brother in law came down to visit for Thanksgiving week. It was great seeing the little cousins all playing together. They will soon be joined by two more, as my sister and brother are expecting twins! Only 13 years ago I don’t think my parents could have imagined that their gay son and their single daughter approaching 30 would someday give them so many grandchildren. Surrogacy and IVF are beautiful things.

Next, Josh’s brother Robert drove his family down to visit for the week of Hanukkah. It was great for them to spend so much quality time with Josh and Robert’s parents, and I know it lifted Phyllis’ spirits immensely.

At the end of an eventful decade we are most grateful for our growing, happy family. We are hopeful for continued prosperity at home and brighter days for the world at large…

Happy New Year 2020!

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…

Better Half

On March 31, 1997 at the age of 22, I started dating a man who would completely change my life for the better. He has stood beside me for 22 years through 6 jobs, 5 homes, 4 kids, 3 turtles, 2 dogs, and 1 amazing wedding two years ago today to the day. Today at the age of 44, I thank Josh for being my better half in every sense!

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.