Family: Grant + Court + Kids + Canine Kids

This blog post is going to be a huge promotion for Grant’s Amazing Bacon (GAB) even though he’s not exactly in the business of selling it. However, Grant is an incredible griller/ meat smoker/ pickler/ chef/ etc-er who I once traded photographs for his melt-in-your-mouth bacon (and then purchased the next order with cash). Literally, I brought home the bacon. And everyone to whom we’ve ever served this bacon has had the same reaction: “OH MY GOD! WHERE DID YOU GET THIS BACON?!” From San Francisco to Chicago to New York to Washington, D.C., we have been spreading the gospel of Grant’s Awesome Bacon. There was even a toddler, once diagnosed with failure to thrive, going back for third and fourth servings of this bacon, to the point that his mom was asking us for Grant’s name and contact, so she could especially order his bacon if it meant her kid would eat and grow.

Anyway, slightly beknownst to Grant and Court, I have been trying to encourage Grant to market his delicious cooking to a greater population, an idea over which he hems and haws. However, though I did not photograph any pictures of bacon, I have photographed their warm, kind, welcoming and very well-read family. (Court you may recognize from prior photos that I’ve taken of her company). Here are some pictures that we took right before the holidays.

Kids and Families, Special Events

Cool Blue Bat Mitzvah!

December in the DC area is very fickle, and for this bat mitzvah, we happened to land on some of the colder days of the month, even though the girls were so good at pretending like it was a balmy tropical day in their sleeveless dresses (a lot of me calling out, “THINK FLORIDA! WE’RE STANDING ON A WARM BEACH! YOU’RE GETTING UNBELIEVABLY TAN!”) We shot photos during the bat mitzvah girl’s rehearsal and then a week later at her party celebrating the actual bat mitzvah at The Loft at 4935 in Bethesda. To keep with the winter theme, they chose shades of blue – in their dresses and at the party – and the guests had a blast with nonstop dancing, party games, food and a photo booth. Here are some pictures from that fun day!

Special Events

Celebrating: Bookish Bat Mitzvah!

This December bat mitzvah at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rockville was one of the nicest ones I’ve been to: small, low-key, and with such understated elegance, as the photos will illustrate. The bat mitzvah girl loved reading, so the theme was books. It was a refreshing challenge to the guests who volunteered to help come up with the design for the decor – how does one make books seem fun and party-ish? Well, they pulled it off with the use of encyclopedias, paper flowers cut from texts, and bookmarks as name cards. I was allowed to subtly photograph the ceremony from the back and then capture the rest of the party, where kids ate Chinese food (brilliant choice) for lunch, and everyone played games, danced, took photo booth pictures, danced the Hora and watched a slideshow of her growing up. Here are some pictures from that lovely afternoon.