Wow—what a whirlwind last 12 months we’ve had! Here’s a quick compilation of some of Mom-O’s highlights with her dudes—from riding rapids & exploring a goldmine Colorado, to ziplining in Hawaii, to freezing in Yosemite, to plumbing the depths of Death Valley and beyond. The pics are also viewable as a gallery.
Category: Photos
Categories
Remembering John Chancellor
As a very young kid, I spent innumerable hours (and gallons of water) playing in the sandbox, where engaged in the rather bizarre ritual of drowning “John Chancellor” (a Fisher-Price figure I named after the then-current anchorman). I also enjoyed taking my Lego armada into the tub for technicolor food coloring battles.
Therefore I’m one happy padre when I see our dudes partaking of the same kinds of fun (well, minus the late Mr. Chancellor), sometimes with the exact same boats! Here’s a little gallery from yesterday’s building & battling. (Note cameo appearances from the little Lego lion & whale Grandma Nack sent at Easter!)
Much like we did in 2015 and then again last year (pics), the boys & I dropped in on Google’s annual Take Your Kids To Work Day. After engaging in some sugar-fueled Greco-Roman beatdowns, the boys checked out an animal exhibit (how ’bout that anteater!), Finn got himself a new hoodie, and Hen scored a giant plush Android. 🙂 Check out a bit of the proceedings:
Bonus throwback: Finn doing his best Dad-O impression at the whiteboard during our 2015 visit:
After stalking Easter eggs & wolfing down their candy contents, the boys headed up to San Francisco with us on Sunday to explore the California Academy of Sciences. Check out a few glimpses of our day:
The Willow Glen Green Dragons cool off after their latest victory 💦⚾️😄🐲
What’s the sound of 1,000 little fingers slapping? Watch this vid & see, as the dudes & I circled the infield and high-fived a couple hundred of their fellow Willow Glen Little Leaguers:
Categories
Splish-Splash at the Sutro Baths
On Saturday we drove north to SF to rendezvous with cousin Patrick Loughnane & his wife Jocelyn, then check out the ruins of San Francisco’s historic Sutro Baths. The crazy-gusty wind blew Finn & Margot back to the car, but intrepid Hen led the rest of us down to the caves & along the catwalks among the pools (much to Grandpa Nack’s unease :-p). Check out a few photos from the little adventure, and watch for Patrick’s hair to convey just how gusty things got!
Categories
Our Life on the Rails
From the redwoods to the Rockies…
From Death Valley to Dubuque…
From the Pacific coast to the shores of Lake Michigan…
…in every season and at every age, we’ve sure had some excellent times riding the rails with our dudes & pals.
Following Sunday’s train show, Old Railroad Man Hen decided he’d really like to print out an exhibit of our photos capturing just some of our adventures. Here’s a sample of the ever-growing set!
Oh, and here are our very oldest & very newest Hen/train pics. 🙂
Our big man Finn turns 9 this week (What?! Nine?! Nein!!). Though he’s not fond of being the center of attention, we managed to get him to agree to a small, low-key celebration with two of his best buddies, Colton and Damien. We took everyone out to the Lego Batman movie, then went out for pizza, and home for cake, gifts, and a sleepover.
Finn also did an excellent job of art-directing and helping to construct his custom birthday cake: chocolate cake, frosted with Nutella, filled with more Nutella and banana slices, and ringed with cookie straws. A good, sugar- and nerf battle-fueled time was had by all. Here’s a little gallery of the proceedings.
Categories
Sweet child o’ mine—literally
“Ohhhh!!” said Hen, cackling as he saw this bit of silliness I whipped up, “Get those off the screen & put them in my mouth!!” That kid has never met a carbohydrate he didn’t like, so it was fun to make him this tasty morsel.
Categories
Pinewood Dervishes 2017
This year the lads took a much more active hand in crafting their Pinewood Derby cars, applying hacksaws, a Dremel, paint, and glue to shape their hot rides (which ran much faster this year than last!). Here’s a little gallery showing the construction, plus a video from the day.
Categories
Superb Owl Sunday
Hope you & your feathered friends enjoyed the big game. 🙂
Categories
Space Looens!
Recipe:
- Ingredients:
- Two young dudes
- Innumerable cardboard scraps pulled from recycling
- $3 worth of random hot tub tubing
- Assorted memories of James Bond’s “Moonraker”
- One sleepy dad
- One rainy Saturday
- Mix well, serve cheerfully.
While I dozed on Saturday following the march, the dudes took a break from screen time and surprised me by constructing a really elaborate launch pad, jet packs, helmets, communicators, and more for Leo, Tim, and other members of the animal posse. Here’s a little gallery of some space-age cuteness.
I felt so proud & privileged today to march alongside Finn & Hen (and in spirit alongside Mom-O in DC) in the record-setting Women’s March. Numerous marchers smiled & took pics of the sign Hen thought up and made by himself (well, with a little questionable spelling assistance from Finn). I’ll translate: “You fried circus peanut, you’re not going to rule our state, you’ll rule the dungeon. Boo Trump!” :-p
Here are a few shots from the day.
Poor Finn simply wanted to look nice in a portrait.
Henry, diving into the shot, wasn’t having any of that. 🙂
It’s hard to believe that Christmas 2016 has already come and gone! This year, it was just us four California Nacks, enjoying a quiet, relaxing day at home. Although Henry and Finn tried to wake us up at 3:30 a.m. to open presents, we put them off until the only-slightly-less-unreasonable 5:00 a.m.
Santa and our extended families bestowed many gifts upon the lads this year, especially the much-discussed and eagerly-anticipated big lego sets that each boy was hoping for. Henry got his Lego Airport, and Finn got his Lego Volcano Exploration base station. Certainly not forgotten was Dad-o, who was the happy recipient of a Lego Creator Big Ben set (which he is still constructing!) and a remote control drone! Among other wonderful gifts, I got a terrific Lego Beatles’ Yellow Submarine set. Needless to say we spent a great deal of the day working on our Legos, alternating construction time with dinner, movies, naps, and snacks.
Here’s a gallery of our day.
Back in the high-tech hothouse of late-’70s Galena, IL, my mom used to let me draw with melting crayons on paper over a hot plate. As cool (or rather, hot) as that was, I’m happy that creative experiences have evolved, and on Saturday I took the lads up to SF to try their hands at painting in virtual reality. We dropped in on Adobe San Francisco, where a bunch of my old friends and colleagues have been busy helping shape the future of expressivity.
Here’s a quick video plus a gallery from the adventure. (Much more to come, we hope!)
Categories
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hen & Mom-O recently visited our local fire station with the Cub Scouts, learning that the brave folks who protect us don’t get to take holidays off. Inspired by this, they decided to whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies & bring them over to say thanks to the guys spending Thanksgiving away from their families.
This proved easier said than done! As we parked in the morning, we joked, “Gee, I hope they don’t have to zoom off on a call right now”—but as we walked up, that’s exactly what they did! When we tried again a couple of hours later, history repeated exactly, and on our third visit (this time around lunch), they were gone entirely. Fortunately the fourth time was the charm, and the appreciative team treated us to a great mini tour. Check it out:
Categories
Sisyphean Monkey Bars
Ol’ Henry can be such a vexing dude: He’s plenty capable of many things (e.g. swimming), but boy does he get into his own head and run laps there, never believing he can do it. Yet do it he can a lot of times, and this is a perfect example: He’s now a nut for the monkey bars, often traversing a whole set in one go (something I never did!). Here’s a silly little boomerang animation that Google Photos made from one of his recent attempts (and yes, he did eventually make it across!).
Categories
Hawaiian Goofballs
Put the boys under the world’s largest banyan tree, stuff them with some of the world’s largest shave ices, and you’re gonna get some silliness. 🙂
