Merry 2012, Happy 2013

This is our second annual holiday blog update. We are delighted to report that almost nothing has changed since last year. We're all living in the same house, working at the same jobs or attending the same preschool (watching the same movies, eating the same foods, reading some of the same books...).

We're extraordinarily happy about this year of peace and calm. Honestly the biggest change in our lives since December 2011 is that Graham is potty trained. This is pretty cool for us, but probably not a huge deal for most of you.

Next year will be a year of big changes - a new job for Katie, kindergarten for Finn, and a new (used) car... but that's next year. Today we're looking back just being thankful...
For fun family roadtrips...

For the vibrant and robust health of our kids, even when it means they exhaust us...

For living somewhere beautiful and friendly...

For new friends and old friends, and lots of opportunities to see both kinds (even though we apparently can't be bothered to take pictures of most of them)...

For eating good food...

And for our family, near and far.

Wishing you love, joy, and PEACE,
Jonathan, Katie, Finn, and Graham

P.S. There are more photos (mostly of the kids) on Katie's Flickr page.

Nostalgia

Yesterday for Thanksgiving we got out Finn's old seersucker suit to see if it fit Graham.
Boy, did it ever.

And that made me want to find a picture of Finn wearing it. But then I remembered that we bought it for Elise and Paul's wedding, and Finn had a giant meltdown right before the ceremony and wouldn't wear the jacket or tie. We were lucky to get the shirt on him. Here we all are at the reception, with Finn in half the outfit, and Graham at about 7 months.

And whenever I think of dressing Finn up, I always think of this picture:

I don't think we ever put that one on Graham. Or the other schmancy vest outfit Finn wore when he was about two. Bad parents! Terrible, terrible missed opportunities, both in dress up and photography.

In preparation for future bouts of nostalgia, I made sure to take plenty of pictures at today's Christmas tree selection and cutting. This is our second year in a row at the same place, and it's a good one, so I'm ready to call it a tradition.
Cutting...

And hauling...

High of 72 here today, by the way.

Here are Jonathan and Finn, performing and supervising last year's cutting, respectively:

Last year we went on a busy day when they were out of carts. I remember the walk back to the car being much longer.

The jacket Finn's wearing in that picture fits Graham now. It's not as cute as the suit, but I'm not sure what would be.

Back to the Pumpkin Farm

Yesterday afternoon (after grocery shopping, laundry, swimming lessons...) we headed up the coast to Half Moon Bay on our annual pumpkin farm visit. On the way there we passed this stretch of beach where there always seem to be at least a dozen people kitesurfing. Since this is less than 20 miles from my house, it is entirely possible that there are people I pass in the grocery store every week who own their own kitesurfing equipment and do this every weekend. Every time we drive by I have a surreal "wow, we really live in California" moment.

Up at the pumpkin farm, the first order of business is always the 2 acre hay maze. We've been doing this most years since 2005, even if I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, because we love a good maze. The first few years we carried/dragged the kids through the maze; this might be the first year they had even more fun than we did. There's a time after you first have kids where you stop doing a lot of the things you used to do, and start doing things you never would have done before (children's museums, anyone?). This is all fine and normal and all, but it's nowhere near as cool as doing things you used to do, going places you used to go, bringing your kids, and watching them have a blast.

 After the maze we all picked out our pumpkins - and took the obligatory pictures-of-boy(s)-in-field-of-pumpkins.
2008:

2010:

2012:

After we finished up at the pumpkin farm, we headed a few miles further up the coast for dinner at Cameron's. It's a family favorite. There are double decker buses, video games, TV screens, plenty of space, a pretty extensive kids menu, and a full bar. It's exciting enough for the kids that they stay entertained while we have a conversation, but familiar enough they don't forget to go to the bathroom. And I can get a whole plate of fried brussel sprouts.

Pictured: ice cream, not brussel sprouts. After dessert, we threw the boys in their PJs and headed for home, where we moved their sleeping selves from the car to their beds.
Good day, Fortney family!

Why we didn't blog in August

Here is our list of excuses, in chronological order, as best as we can reconstruct from last month's calendar, e-mail, and Facebook.
Aug 1: What, I have 30 more days left.
Aug 2: 29 more days. What's the big deal?
Aug 3: Went to Shakespeare Santa Cruz's Twelfth Night.
Aug 4: Drove to San Rafael to spend the weekend with friends.
Aug 5: Drove home from San Rafael.
Aug 6: Monday. You can't blog on a Monday.
Aug 7: Suffered minor breakdown resulting from overwhelming amounts of zucchini in the fridge.
Aug 8: Had a friend over for to watch some RuPaul's Drag Race, ate really spicy hummus.
Aug 9: Had friends over for dinner, and talked to them about how they're watching our kids for a couple days in September while we both skip town.
Aug 10: Got top layers of new mattress adjusted.
Aug 11: Birthday party for a 3-year old. Then a guest bagpiper/ukeleleist/etc. at our house, followed by s'mores around the fire.

Aug 12: You know. Chores. Bad movies on Netflix with the kids.
Aug 13: Monday again.
Aug 14: Finn and Graham's 1st and 2nd dentist appointments, respectively.
Aug 15: Packed for midwest trip.
Aug 16: Flew to Minnesota.
Aug 17: Drove to Iowa.
Aug 18: Bradfield family reunion/Cedar Valley Pride.

Aug 19: Family party.
Aug 20: Drove to IA City to hang out with long lost friends. Martini night with the girls.

Aug 21: Recovering from martini night with the girls.

Aug 22: Drove to Minnesota.
Aug 23: Went to Science Museum to learn about pirates. And dinosaurs.

Aug 24: Minnesota State Fair.

Aug 25: Fortney family cabin. Ate too much cake for Becky's birthday.

Aug 26: Drove home from cabin. Family party. Too much cake again.
Aug 27: Flew back to California.
Aug 28: Back at work: tried to triage work e-mail before vacation aftershock due to preschool closure.
Aug 29: Finished answering emergency work e-mail, braced for Labor Day weekend.
Aug 30: Preschool closed; spent day at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Aug 31: Preschool closed; spent day at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Sept 1: Still felt like August: ordered new couch; Finn learned to ride without training wheels.

And today, we're driving up to San Francisco. I'm sure that, uh... Jonathan will blog about it.

As We Like It

Summertime! Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which may end up being Graham's favorite holiday after Christmas. He is quite adept at spotting American flags, telling us he sees them, and that they are there "Because our country is America!!" Yes, I used two exclamation points on purpose. He's really into it. In our neighborhood there is a July 4th bike parade, which Finn had a blast at last year, so we'll doing that again.

In other news, while Katie was in Anaheim at a library conference, I potty trained Graham in 2 days. Yes, I'm that good! OK, in reality Graham just finally decided that he wanted to wear underwear, and that was that. It's been 10 days now, with very few accidents, and even nice work in the #2 department. It's really quite amazing compared to his brother, who wasn't quite doing this well at age three, as you might recall. Graham, at various times this week after doing his business: "Are you so proud daddy?" "FANNN-TASTIC" "Do I get a fruit snack?" "Are you so happy?" Then later: "What does proud mean?" This no diapers thing is all I hoped for and more.

Graham is also growing out of being a fantastic sleeper. (Not as we like it.) Usually both boys go to bed at 7:30 pm, and wake up at 6:15, which has worked fine because Finn doesn't take a nap but Graham still does. He's of course always needed more sleep since he's younger. Finn is still on this schedule, but as Graham gets older, he apparently is needing less sleep. He hasn't been falling asleep until probably 8:30 pm lately which has necessitated moving him and his bed into the playroom. There he can kick around and play after Finn has gone to sleep. This really isn't ideal for anyone, but as long as he keeps napping, I don't see any way around it. Sigh... It was such a perfect system, people! I don't have any pictures to correspond to these stories, so here are some other photos:

Dressing up "like daddy"

Finn IS growing up, isn't he!!!

Superheroes enjoy watermelon

Thanks daddy for finding my fishing pole, buying some worms, and taking us down to Westlake Park (down the street)... Finn hasn't asked to go since, so it may not have been all that he'd hoped for.

Next Venus Transit is in 2117!

Our Eclipse Vacation went so well that we decided to view the transit of Venus. This time there was an excellent view right in town, so we headed to the west side of campus to take in the multi-hour event. Venus transits were first predicted by Kepler (the man) and viewed in 1639.  Here is the best pic that I got through a telescope using only my camera phone.  The white balance appeared to be confused.

Here are Graham and Katie.  This was Graham's first time looking through a telescope.  I'm not sure he could really see, but people had some nice projections onto paper, so he knew what was going on.

Finn looked through 3 different telescopes. He was quite excited.

Still very excited. This was after he got to look at the generator that was powering one of the telescopes.

I also drove up the coast 20 miles to see if I could view the transit at sunset, but there was mild cloud cover. It was still nice to be at a large windswept beach, nearly empty, as the Sun set over the Pacific.

10 Things We Did on Memorial Day Weekend

1. Jonathan and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, which was last Tuesday. After the boys went to bed, we went out for dinner at what is probably our favorite restaurant in town, then met some friends downtown for a treasure hunt. Yes, a treasure hunt. With clues, and a map, and counting paces, and pirates. And running. Too much running. We didn't win, but we beat a number of the whipper snapper college student teams, and then we watched Goonies, which was supposed to start at midnight but actually started later after prizes and things and OH MY GOD WE WERE SO TIRED. But good tired.

Here's Jonathan, at the theater, posing with for a quick photo with Jack Black. No action shots of the treasure hunt, because of all the running.

2. We slept in while the boys watched a movie - 3 days in a row. Usually this is a special treat reserved for Sundays, but did I mention about the movie-that-started-after-midnight? Yeah. No one got dressed before 9 all weekend, and 10 was not unusual. As a family that usually is out the door before 8, this is a big deal for us. Here they are today sometime after we clothed them:

3. We picked up half a pig worth of frozen pork from the meat locker on Saturday. We had ordered it from Windsor Family Farm a while back, and even went to visit the farm when my mom was here back in April. The boys had a blast that weekend. There were pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, rabbits... and a trampoline.
If you're in the Bay Area, I highly recommend you check it out. And if you're not, I still recommend finding a local farm to buy meat from (or vegetables, or cheese, or whatever): see what a quick search on Local Harvest shows in your neck of the woods.

Baby roosters, by the way? Hilarious. Not really big enough for either the feathers or the attitude they walk around with.

I'm not sure the boys get the connection between these pigs and the meat, but... we'll get there.

4. On Saturday, we grownups went to sleep the earliest we can remember - I think we were both in bed around 8, and frankly, I wasn't functioning all that well before that, even after napping with Graham in the afternoon. Putting recycling in the trash, trash in the recycling - it was madness. Did I mention the midnight movie?

5. We took the boys to see a movie on Sunday - Chimpanzee. It was... okay. A little more death and violence than I expected, but the boys were okay with it.

6. After nearly 2 years in our new house, we finally had a fire in the fireplace. And the living room kind of smells like wood smoke now. Yes, the flue works, but the fire didn't take on the first try and there was a lot of kindling involved.

7. We went to a baseball game. The San Jose Giants minor league team, known (at least at our house) for their giant orange gorilla mascot, Gigante. This is supposed to be the 3 guys watching the game, but Finn's cotton candy bag decided to grab a piece of the action.

And like last summer, there were plenty of inflatables.

We left early, but not before sampling some ice cream, churros, and lemonade - in addition to the cotton candy.

8. We made muffins. Finn would want me to tell you: he can crack an egg into a bowl without breaking the yolk.

9. We did yardwork. Jonathan dug up what's probably the biggest bamboo root I've ever seen. I weeded 'til I could hardly stand. The menfolk transplanted Finn's pumpkin plant from indoors to outdoors. And Finn and Graham picked our pea plants completely clean of snowpeas. And ate them all out in the yard. I think I snagged two.

10. And tonight - Mad Men!