Happy Birthday Beauty!

Happy birthday babe. You are now older today but like you keep telling me I will always be older. Ha.

Well what can I say. You are such an amazing person. This last year and a half has been just amazing to be by your side. I'm so pumped for you and things that are aligning for your future. You have the biggest heart for everyone and that is just telling of the type of person you are. You are an wonderful mom. I love seeing you with Zane and the way he just lights up when he sees you. Thanks for being our family's rock.

I love you so much that that phrase doesn't seem to say it all. I know that is cheesy but you know what I mean. I hope that you have such a great day and Zane and I can't wait to go to the zoo or the art museum this weekend.

I love this picture of you. It says so many things, like the vision you have, the thought you put into everything and the love you have for the world around us.

You're the bestest. love you.

Alphabeat "Fascination" or Duck Tales Theme

Once again I have been drawn towards youtube. This is a pop song being played over in the UK and its also getting stuck in my head. Although I keeping thinking of the Duck Tales theme song when I hear this. Happy Thursday.

Cheers.

Space Pirates Ghostbusters Remix

Check out this tune. Maya and I always listen to this radio show in London and this has been something they played recently and i can't get it out of my head. Space Pirates is a kids show on the BBC and you should know the other song its mixed with. Enjoy some tuesday fun.

Happy Birthday Zane!!!!

Zane,
Happy 1st birthday buddy. The first year of your life has been truly amazing to watch and be a part of. Your mom and I can't express enough how much we love you and how in awe we are of you each and every day. Thanks so much for filling our hearts with pure joy every time we hold you, even when you are screaming at the top of your lungs at 3am. I can't wait to see what amazing things God has in store for your life and I feel so blessed that your mom and I get to be a part of all of it. Your are definitely and inspiration to your parents.

Love you so much Egor... have a great first birthday.

Daddy

Happy LOST Day

Here is a quick synopsis for all of those who have never seen this amazing show.

For the Lake.

This christmas I wanted to give my parents a painting for their lake house. I had all intentions of finishing it for christmas but that didn't happen. So instead of being able to give them the painting on the 25th I gave them a printed out picture of it instead. I think they were a bit confused when they got it but they figured it out. Well I am happy to say that I finished it this past week and was able to get it to them this weekend when they came down to see Zane. They are so excited to take it to the lake house and display it. I think I will eventually put a frame on it but for now I wanted them to be able to enjoy it.

Here's to fun weekends at the lake.

Cheers.

Sunburnt, but not complaining.

Just got back from Naples, Florida on a photo shoot. Torrey and I went down there to get some shots done for an annual report that we will be working on soon. We also needed to take some additional photos for other marketing materials for our client. We had a really good time but they were full of long days of shooting. It was very surreal getting off the plane and feeling humidity but we weren't complaining. We are now back in the office but my face is now pealing from the sunburn I got. Poor me, right. Above is a photo I took during one of the shoots that we had. I was just playing around.

Man I can't wait for warm weather and some green trees.

Cheers.

Total Miles Run from Training: 11 miles
Total Weight Lost: 2 pounds

The Mini.

So in my last post I told you I had some fun things on the horizon for 08. Here is one of them. In May my friend Marcus and I will be running the 500 Festival Mini Marathon. This past weekend was the start of my training. Never in a million years would I ever have thought I would be running a marathon. I would have thought you were crazy. But I stand corrected and so here we go. I am pumped about it but also not sure how I am going to be able to run that far all at one time. Hopefully with a lot of hard work and some fun it will happen. My world has changed since Zane has entered into our lives and I just want to set a good example for him and obviously taking care of myself is one of them.

Here's to running a long way for fun. ( What am I thinking.)
Cheers.

Total Mileage during training: 2 miles

Some Photos

Happy New Year!!! I hope that everyone had a great holiday. We had a great one and spent alot of time together as a family which was amazing. I've got some cool things to talk about for 08 but that will have to wait for another post. Anyways, before the holiday Torrey and I went and took a tour of a new building in Indy that is being renovated to become an office/residential building much like the Stutz community. It was freakin cold and we had to use flashlights to get around but it was a blast. The building use to be an old car factory. It is definitely a hidden gem. I can't wait to watch and see how things go with it. Here are some photos that I took on the tour. The sink shot is my favorite.

Cheers to 2008.

Christmas Theme Song

Hey everyone if you even still look at this blog. This morning while I was painting (Yes I said this morning) I heard this song on a radio station I was listening to. I have heard this song before but I heard it in a different light this morning.

Being together as a family this holiday season has been the goal for our family. We have been doing some fun things together because of the advent calender that we came up with. I'm sure most of you have read Maya's blog about it but for those of you who haven't, we have been doing little activities as a family instead of having the traditional present for each day of the month of december. It has been a blast. I know for a fact that we will continue to do this every year and hopefully improve on it.

I hope all of you have a wonderful holiday and you have some good quality time with family and friends.

Here's to being together.
Cheers.

debut

Last night I went to the Melody Inn downtown Indy to see some of my friends play in there first show together. They didn't go on stage until 11:00 pm, so I was able to help Maya put Zane to bed. The band is called Training Wheel Fire and is made up of alot of guys that I volunteer with. It was great to see them in their element and doing what they love. They did an amazing job and their original music was great. I can't wait to hear more stuff from them. One thing that was really cool was that the dad of one of the band members was there. It was so cool because I would glance over at him and he seemed so proud of his son while he was up on stage. I can't wait to see Zane fulfilling his dreams and seeing what he is interested in. Its amazing how my thoughts and experiences revolved back to Zane and how I see things more as a parent now.

Here's to great live music.

Cheers.

sneak peek

This past sunday we went downtown Carmel and took some shots of the family. It was alot of fun and we got some cool stuff. I'm sure Maya will post more of them later. I also did a little photoshoping with the color and some drool from Zane.

Cheers.

Poison

Just a little Thursday Fun. In honor of Scrubs premiering for its final season tonight. This show is so underated.

Cheers.

Identity

So this morning after gathering Zane’s things and making my PopTart I headed out to drop Zane off and get to work. Since I was so all over the place this morning I forgot my key to the office. Crap. So now I am waiting for Torrey to get to work so that I can get into the office. So while I was waiting I picked up a book out of my bag that I frequently read all the time to energize me. As I was reading something hit me this morning pretty hard. Ouch. Here is the statement:

“Talk less about your identity and do more to define, live and believe it.”

This statement hit me because I always have a hard time explaining to people what I do. I normally tell people that I am a designer and an artist. Since I got my new job I truly believe that I am living up to that statement on the design end. My work environment is amazing and is truly focused on doing rather than talking about it. Although sometimes clients get in the way. Now for the artist part. I really don’t feel like I am living up to that part of my identity. I have in the past I think but lately I have really neglected the artist side. I need to stop talking and do...

Is there a part of your identity that you talk about more than you really are doing?

Here’s to doing rather than talking.

Cheers.

Brain Warm-Up

This morning I decided to do a little googling and learn something new about photoshop. A couple of weeks ago I went to a seminar and they taught us what was new with the CS3 Adobe Creative Suite. I really got alot out of the photoshop new stuff. One of the cool things that I learned was about a new tool where you can merge photos together to create a panoramic image and the program will do it for you. Anyways, here is my first attempt at it. I am really pumped about it because we have some fun pics from our trip to London and Paris that this will work perfectly for.

Cheers.

That's a Big Crack.

In London at the Tate Modern a new sculpture was unveiled. It was done by a Columbian artist. It is basically a huge crack down the middle of the museum. It symbolizes the racial hatred and division in society. I personally think it is such a simple and impactful idea. As an artist and designer I always strive for telling the story in the most simple way, so that is why I really like this piece of artwork. Now as an artist I want to know how it was done. The artist basically said there are no illusions and that infact it is a real crack. How do you create a crack of that size and not test the structural integrity of the building. Very interesting to me.

Cheers.

Photo of Day

A couple of weeks ago we went to a football game where my cousin Ben was the starting quarterback for his freshmen team. We got up there alittle late but in the end Ben's team in the very closing minutes of the game won when their running back broke away from the pack and scored. It was cool because it was their high school rival. Here is a photo for the day. My cousin is number 10. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Crazy days in the Laurent household lately. Also, Maya is so much better at keeping up with this stuff than I am.

Here's to football season.
Cheers.

IF: Wedding

It's been to long since I have last participated in Illustration Friday. It was great to see that this weeks topic was wedding because I had done this painting not to long ago as a wedding present for the couple getting married. I hope you enjoy and that this will start the trend back to being a regular on IF.

Cheers.

Recent Work.

As promised here is one of my recent projects I worked on at work. It is a large illustration on some construction fencing across the street from the University of Notre Dame. It was a blast to work on and I am very proud of it. I hope that you like it.

Catch Up.

This past week has been crazy but fun. On the 31st of August Kevin, a great life long friend from PA, came to visit the Laurent household. The week started out at the lake house. We had to show Kevin where we spend most of the summer at. It was great, we took a couple boat rides, watched college football and ate some good food. Then on Monday and Tuesday we went to see my parents and play some golf at my dad's golf course. We had a fun time and Kevin has greatly improved his game since we last played probably in college or quite possibly in high school. I was nervous because it was my first time out this year to play. Some how I managed to shoot 77 on Tuesday. Not to bad. After that we came home and basically relaxed Wednesday and then on Thursday we went to THE GAME!! Yes, Kevin was nice enough to ask me to go with him to the Colts vs. Saints game. It was so much fun. I think I lost my voice after the first defensive series. Before the game we hung out with Matt and Jenny. It was great to see them. On Friday Kevin went out with another friend for the evening so Maya and I decided to go gallery hopping downtown. It was so much fun. We took Zane to his first art experience. I am pretty sure he had a blast. He crashed on the way home. Very cute. Saturday we took Kevin to Braydon's birthday party. Happy birthday buddy!!! It was great to see family and friends. After that it was off to home for some football and naps on the couch. Sunday Kevin left. We had so much fun with him and it was great to catch up and dive into each others lives. And it was great for Kevin to meet Zane. Oh yeah, through all the craziness of the week Zane turned 7 months old. Holy crap time is flying by.

Here's to friendships that always seem to pick up where they left off no matter how much time has past.

Cheers.