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.

Let's go fly a kite

It's really a testament to the awesomeness of our backyard that I don't think I've been to this park in months. I mean, it's on our BLOCK. There are DUCKS.

Jonathan's at some all day meeting today. About planets or something. So the boys and I came over to fly kites, which we cannot do in our backyard. And yes, I'm writing this blog post from the park. But I'll have to wait until later to embed the video. (I don't know who's screaming in the background. I didn't notice it at the time.)

This was Graham's first kite-flying expedition. (He's quite small and distant in this photo, but I promise he and the kite are both there.)

I think it was Finn's second time out with a kite. He's a pro, as you can see.

And then we went home and made cookies.

Some April Shenanigans

Hello! We're still here! We've been keeping busy. For example, we dyed Easter eggs. And then we went on an Easter egg hunt, and ate a big delicious Easter dinner with family in Salinas.

The boys had spring break for a week, and Jonathan was supposed to have jury duty, but never got called in. So we took turns working, and one day we went to the zoo.

Also, we got a very exciting new box the last time we went to Costco, and that takes up a lot of our time. At least, when Mona's not using it as a cave or a sunbathing spot. (Finn would like to apologize for wearing tan socks in this photo instead of head-to-toe orange. He has since gotten three pairs of orange socks, and can camouflage himself pretty well in a crowd of Giants fans, or a really big produce display of carrots and citrus.)

Fortunately, when we're worn out after a long day filled with this sort of adventure, we can perk ourselves back up by getting the boys ready for bed in their matching PJs. Graham is finally big enough to wear the Woody ones (when he's not wearing his other favorite pajamas and being Tiny Batman, of course.)

Still, I'm worn out just talking about it all. Time for a nap, don't you think?

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

I recently came out of my teaching cocoon after 6 months within it. Now my life is much more flexible until September. It hard to teach a class and keep up with everything else in life. Other things obviously slip---my contribution to the blog being one of them! I do enjoy teaching and I get a lot of personal satisfaction from reading my evaluations, which generally show that the students think that I know what I'm doing! Or at least that I'm enthusiastic as we stumble along together.

The boys are growing up. Graham is 2 1/2 today! Graham has started to pee in his little potty from time to time, so we'll see where that goes. The swag (stickers, fruit snacks) are far more important to him than any sense that this is what one is "supposed to do." With Finn, it was a long process, and I don't expect anything different with Graham. Only my brother Justin's kids potty train themselves in a week. (Grumble, grumble.) Graham is now in his terrible twos, as he complains about what we're having for dinner and often will lay face first on the ground when he doesn't get his way. But he is still effortlessly cute and snuggly.

Finn is nearing 4 1/2, and about 2 moths ago he told us that he wanted to learn how to read. Katie has been doing nearly daily lessons on reading and writing with him, and he's getting really quite good. Here he is on a "sick day" (he got better fast!) on campus with me. He got to see the room and I teach in and he played with the chalk for about 45 minutes. And he wrote my name pretty well, I must say! Organized soccer practice (Soccersaurus!) just started, and swimming lessons, after a 2-year layoff, in May as well.

My mom came out for a few days earlier in the month, and everyone had a great time. I occasionally daydream just how nice it would be to have more of the family close-by, and then I think about how the life of an academic scientist rarely allows for you to work where you grew up, which is at least possible (if not the norm) for most other jobs that exist. So there is that. Santa Cruz of course has a number of other wonderful attributes!

The boys play together a lot these days. Finn told Katie yesterday that Graham is his favorite person to play with! Graham, being Graham, is usually up for anything that involves Finn, even when it is getting mauled a bit. They had several cute moments on the couch this morning. I promise that Graham was having a good time.

Quick post about our quick vacation

Presidents' Day Weekend! You have to celebrate that, right? And if you find yourself halfway through Saturday and realize you have no reason to be home before Monday night, shouldn't you celebrate that with an impromptu vacation? Isn't that what our founding fathers would have wanted? Staycations? I thought so.
First up, we met up with some friends and their new baby in Oakland to visit the Chabot Space & Science Center, and a good time was had by all. You would not believe how long a toddler can flip switches in an old space capsule and be thoroughly entertained. Also, grownups have fun. (Hey Fortney, nice job with the extra hand. No, I'm not going to Photoshop it out.)

On the way I downloaded a new app to play with photos on my phone. Aviary is not sponsoring this post, but you can send them hate mail if you're annoyed. Anyway, after the space fun we headed up to a hotel in Fairfield, and everyone had a pizza night out. At a table right next to all the video games.

The next morning brought swimming in the hotel pool (later deemed by Finn to be the best part of the trip), followed by TV while the parents showered. The boys are now familiar with commercial interruptions, and are justly angry at how unfair they are.

Once we were all dressed, we hit the Jelly Belly visitor center for the factory tour, and everyone ate as much candy as they wanted -- frankly, not much. We haven't even finished the free samples we got from the tour. But we are all stocked up on their new cocktail flavors if you want to come try them. Mojito jelly beans! Pomegranate cosmo jelly beans! What could be better? Well, lots of things. But we did have fun. See?

And now here's a video of Graham talking, because it's been sitting in the queue waiting for your enjoyment.

Our house

For Christmas we turned our office into a playroom, because we never actually used it as an office, and we figured our house was too small to have a whole room we never used. Then I was going to post some before and after pictures, and I realized I didn't HAVE any before pictures. Oops. So then I was just going to refer back to the old video walkthrough of the house, but after searching back through the blog, I realized that only existed in my mind. Huh. So then I made a NEW (first, only) video of the house, and even edited a little. But when I uploaded it to Vimeo, it got all squishified because Vimeo didn't understand the aspect ratio even though the dang thing looked fine on our computers. So then I gave up.

But then! Then Jonathan was out of town again this week and I reformatted/exported/something the video, and now you can view it non-squished. Pretty boring if you've been to our house; less so if you haven't and have been wondering what it's like here.


So now it exists, in case we ever do a big remodeling project, or find a way to lead a clutter-free existence (ha).
Also, have some photos.
1: The Ultimate Winter Couscous from Plenty, which I highly recommend. Even if you don't want to cook from it, just look at the pictures.

2: Remember when Finn melted down at his birthday party? Some classmates had a party at the same place recently, and he had a much better time. Here he is on the zipline.

3: Sometimes when you turn your back they DON'T destroy everything in sight. Sometimes you go to answer the phone, and when you come back the Lego wall is twice as tall as when you left the room. And it has eyes.

4: Finn and Graham's first time bowling. They loved it. And I got my first (and likely last) turkey.

5: Graham's 3rd haircut, and his first one not sitting in my lap.

6: I went to a conference in Dallas in January and got to meet Jeanette Winterson, who's only, oh, I don't know, probably my FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER. I was so sure I was going to miss her that when I saw she was still there I cried. It was pretty embarrassing, but I got a signed advance copy of her new memoir. Best. Conference. Ever.

Growing up, and Christmas

Firstly, let's debut the new size chart! Since our last update, both boys have had birthdays. Graham has always been a little behind in height and head size, but has sometimes been a bit heavier. But now it appears the young version of Finn is ahead in all categories. What this means for the future, I don't know. Finn is undeniably a big guy--a 95th percentile type of kid.

Well, the holiday season is over, and the Fortney Family has survived, and enjoyed it! We spent 12 days in the Midwest, split between Minnesota and Iowa. The weather was relatively balmy (mid 30s), and there was no snow on the ground. So that was a little unusual. Grandparents were hugged, cousins were riled up, and raviolis were consumed.

Before we left, Santa was smart enough to come (I guess he got the letter!), and the boys got their very own 2003-era Fujitsu laptop, amongst other things, like color-changing matchbox cars. They are quite excited. (Actually, the computer just broke, but Katie is going to "share" her Mac with them for awhile until we find a resolution.)

Both boys were excellent on the plane ride out. Traveling with them is just getting easier and easier. Graham was especially interested in having his very own bag of potato chips (they bought us nearly an hour), as well as checking out the in-flight tunes.

Last year at my parents' house I spent a good 2 hours making Finn a hollowed out snow cave that he spent about 10 seconds in. This year I spent about 20 minutes raking leaves to make the ultimate leaf pile, and the boys loved it. Mostly they would get running starts and try to go right through it, with limited success.



After the trip down to Iowa (Katie may have pictures?) we spent a few hours at the Mall of America, before we caught our plane out of town. You have never lived until you've played mini golf with a 2-year-old and a 4-year old. At least 5 times, Graham had very short "My do it!" temper tantrums when we tried to help him. He was laying face down on the green carpets. Finn only did a full wind-up whack once (the 2nd hole). And no one got hit in the face, so it was pretty successful. We also rode on quite a few rides at the gigantic indoor amusement park, which is not longer called Camp Snoopy. Oh, and we ate at the Rainforest Cafe. Yay!

Fortney Christmas/solstice/etc. letter 2011

Hello blog readers! If you want a normal Christmas letter, you can go read this first. All that is true of us.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, here are some Fortney family vital stats for those of you who've been out of the loop: Graham is 2, Finn is 4. Katie's a librarian and Jonathan's an astronomy professor. Now we'll do some fun facts. If anyone reading this knew all of these before reading this, come claim your raffle prize. We'll let Finn pick it out.

• Graham insists on wearing sweatpants nearly every day. Or, as he calls them, "sofpants."
• Jonathan got to go golfing this month. He shot a 40 on a par 30. It's been so long since he's golfed at home with his own clubs that we cannot figure out how long it's been (and we tried very hard for multiple minutes).
  
• Finn's favorite stuffed animal is teal and electric yellow shark he won at the Santa Cruz boardwalk, "beating" Jonathan in that game where you squirt in the clown's mouth. He calls it "Fishie." He will tell you (repeatedly) that it is not a shark.
  
• Katie tried to grow rhubarb this year, and failed. But the herb garden was fabulous. We still have parsley, sage, chives, and mint. So, so much mint. (Do you need any mint?)
  
• Mona the cat is NINE. She's gotten less picky about many things in her old age. For instance, she's not above Cheerios now.
• Finn knows his right from his left, and could probably navigate you from our house to his preschool on a good day. Of course, you might also end up in the ocean.
• Graham can say just about whatever pops into his head these days. Today, for instance, before 9 am we'd heard "I pooped at the movie," and "I found a knife for Finn."
• Despite having a chest freezer in the garage for most of the year, Katie has failed to follow through with her threats/promises to "buy half pigs with impunity."
• The Father's Day present Jonathan picked out for himself was a German-engineered 5" diameter hot pink high bounce ball. It's still living a happy cage-free life in the backyard.
  
• Speaking of the backyard, we have a tire swing.
• Our current family project is moving crap (books, staples, batteries, exacto knives, wrapping paper) out of our office/nap room/storage area to make it a better guest room. (Hint, hint).
  
• The boys' favorite books right now include Tiddler, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Shy Little Kitten, and anything based on Cars 2.
• Katie recommends NurtureShock (Po Bronson), Dr. Thorne (Trollope), and Kelley Armstrong's YA novels (Darkest Powers trilogy). Jonathan recommends Bossypants (Tina Fey) and An Introduction to the Theory of Stellar Structure and Evolution (Dina Prialnik).
  
• We did our first whole-family movie outing in 2011, to The Muppets. The boys liked it, and ate most of the popcorn, but the grown-ups laughed more.
• The only movies J&K saw in the theaters without the kids in 2011 were Bridesmaids and Harry Potter 7.5. Bridesmaids FTW!
• 6 days after we write this, the four of us will be getting on a plane bound for MSP, and spending 6 days each in Minnesota and Iowa. We're dreaming of a white Christmas (that link is an oh-so-subtle plug for Katie's December project).
  

We hope to see many of you there, or back here after we get back, or somewhere else that 2012 deems fit if that's what works out. We're both fortunate and unfortunate in having so many amazing friends and family so many places. We wish we could see you more often and catch up on your daily trivia the way we've just caught you up on ours.

With love and silliness,
the Fortneys


P.S. No, we didn't order prints of that. We got the other one.

Happy 4th Birthday, Finn!

Four years into this adventure, Finn continues to surprise us.
We started out the day with some breakfast, hugs, and present opening, colored by excitement for this afternoon's party. The kid's been talking about this thing for months. ("My birthday party... is going to be SO. CRAZY.")
We finally had a party where we invited all of Finn's school friends, instead of his parents' friends, and we had it at a Place That Does Parties. A gymnastics place where Finn had been before, so he shouldn't be too crazy-fied by the new environment, but should also be free to run around like the little turbo-charged guy that he is. We were prepared for yelling, and running, and not following directions, and maybe having to insist on some quiet time to keep him from knocking over other kids. We were completely unprepared for sudden inexplicable leg injuries and shyness, which led to him spending most of the party off in a separate room or out in the car with his mom. Crying. Complaining that he didn't want anyone to look at him.
I tried everything in my very large bag of Finn-managing tricks, and the best we managed was bribing him with some early cake and getting him to sit *near* the action while the other kids did their last activity of the afternoon, the zip line.
He had an absolute blast during cake time.

Then he was sad and pained and panicked again, and wanted only to go straight home.
Where we opened presents, and he was mostly fine again. Until bath - again a mess. Apparently we have discovered "too much excitement for Finn" for the first time in at least 3 years. Or maybe this was one of the rare days he would have actually taken a nap. Who knows? Not me, I'm just his mom.
Oh, and this kid?
Had a blast. Was the star of the show. But wouldn't do the zip line.