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!

Eclipsecation? Vaclipsetion?

Our family drove 5 hours away from our house this weekend, the better to see the solar eclipse on Sunday. That's normal, right?
We had to leave a little late on Saturday so that the grownup half of the family could go to a wedding reception first, which meant that we rolled into our destination - Redding, CA, right in the center of the next day's eclipse path, around 10:30 p.m. The boys' normal bedtime is around 7:30. Finn conked out slightly after the dinner stop, as planned, but Graham managed to stay awake until at least 9:30. ("I see a black spot, Daddy. Is that space?" "No Graham, that's a mountain. Go to sleep.")
Jonathan had selected Turtle Bay Exploration Park and the adjacent Sundial Bridge as our day's entertainment/eclipse viewing spot. He chose well. We saw a fish feeding, a wild animal show (a barn owl flew right over our heads! and a hawk! and a vulture!), and the "model river" area before heading out for lunch and a nap.

Then the boys went swimming. Bonus points for getting to wear the goggles IN THE WATER, instead of just around the house.

Then it was back to the park/bridge for parrot feeding and the eclipse. I was impressed with how well Finn did with the parrots - two decided to land on him at once, when I was maybe 8 feet from him, and he kept his cool. But I wouldn't go so far as to say he was a fan.
By the time the eclipse started, we were all pretty hot and tired - it was around 90 in Redding that day. And since it was about an hour from the beginning of the eclipse to the peak, the boys were bored with it long before we were. They liked to put on their cardboard glasses now and again, and told us what they saw, and they humored us with the pinhole viewer, but... yeah.

Not everyone is able to dress for an eclipse. My husband? Heck, yeah.

We didn't have a camera with us that was fancy enough to figure out what it was looking at, even through the eclipse glasses. But the lens flares showing the progress of the eclipse were pretty cool. (See the teeny bright circles/crescents?)

It was a large and fun crowd at the bridge. It was definitely an eclipse viewing destination - lots of people were from out of town, and one family we sat next to for a while was on a day trip... from Seattle. Today I found out that I guy I work with was there on the same bridge - we just didn't see each other. It was awesome time, and totally worth both the drive and the whining of our children. I'm sure some day they'll agree with us.

The next day we decided to check out Shasta Caverns before heading home. Silly us, we thought they would like it. Not so much, even though we did see the bats Finn had been so excited about. Basically, they would have been more than happy to leave just about right after we went in - apparently they found it scary (not the bats, just the empty cave). But we cajoled and bribed them through their doubts, and it was SO worth it. Neither photo nor video quite captures the size and awesomeness of the last chamber, but I tried.

The boys mostly liked the boat ride.

And the miners' helmets we got them as souvenirs. (I mean really, how do you NOT buy those helmets?!)
And then we went home. Five-ish hours, only two stops. 1.5 movies. A new and miraculous record for our boys.
So Tuesday morning we walked into our child care center, after missing a day of school, and no matter how much Finn whined *in* the caverns, he had brought the brochure to show off to all his friends. Jonathan hears him lecturing about stalactites, "See these? These are actually ALIVE." So at least the first half of the whole "living cave" thing stuck. Just not the whole "but not like a plant or animal" part.
And then one of Graham's teachers asked him "where were you yesterday?" And he replied "In a cage!!" Cave, Graham. A CAVE.

P.S. Hotel rooms with sliding doors between the kids and us? Awesome. But next time, can they have the DVD player, and can we have the fridge?

Skinned Knees

The weather has been quite pleasant here lately (well, I guess that isn't such a surprise, sorry) and the boys have been wearing a fair amount of shorts and t-shirts. Scrapes and scabs aplenty! This is actually less "costly" for Finn than wearing pants, since he tends to rip holes in the knees with regularity, which costs us money and time for patches or new pants. That or he can look like a little hobo who wears rags for clothes. It happens. Finn is now 4 1/2 years old, as of the 13th. We're now getting him a little involved in organized activities, which has its pluses and minuses. The minuses are that things cost money and we have to drive him there! But so far he's done a version of soccer with strong parent participation, and tonight was his first swimming lesson in a long time. (We'd done some water-babies type stuff in the past, but it had been a LONG time.) He did great! The only problem from his perspective was that it was only 30 minutes.
He's very proud of his new swimsuit that says "Totally Jawsome" with a shark's mouth. Graham and Finn are really getting along pretty well these days, and while they do play pretty rough, they make each other laugh a lot. Graham can apparently laugh even while getting manhandled as I tell Finn to leave his brother alone. At some point the laughter turns to tears, of course! In this orange (the official color of Fortney Boys, LLC) photo, I think they are both being mice. Graham is "Super Mouse" while Finn is "Flash Mouse."

Obviously here they are "Batman" and "Tiny Batman."  The warm weather has brought out the backyard hammock as well. While last year they were good about not playing on it, this year, not so much. If you turn the volume up to 11 you can hear them giggling. I took the movie from our bedroom window.

Why is this here? We have a lot of snails and slugs in our yard. This one is only about 2 inches. The much rarer banana slugs (never seen in our yard, yet) are more like 6-8 inches.