Utterly amazing, Paul.
I despise group shots (uh, taking them, not viewing them). Blinks, dumb looks, et al. Yours are both wonderful, I'm jealous.
The second, as marvelous as it is....a phenomenon I've not seen quite yet in 3 yrs of digital. Your aperture is so tight it almost makes the background, or the foreground, whatever, look cut and pasted. I don't mean that in a negative way at all, I'm simply curious and somewhat mezmorized.
I did a quick crop and mask (blurring the background and making the the effect I mentioned above even more worser (I have a grad degree in English...just kidding). Advise if you'd care to see it. I'm not saying it's better, it's different. I want to study under you regarding group shots. Mine are awful, consistently.
-Greg