Category: Photos

Categories
Photos

Arrgh… Shiver Mein Timbers!

Greetings from Hamburg, Germany, where Dad-O is fighting jetlag and preparing to meet with his new team in the morning. As you may recall, Margot cooked up an elaborate pirate-themed mythology about Hamburg during her last visit, so now I have a few days to dream up an impressive story to tell Finn!

While I was busy playing human origami in the back of a plane, Mom-O & the guys were off celebrating little Halcyon Stotzner’s birthday with a posse of tots at a nearby jumpatorium. Here’s a quick photo snapped by Halcyon’s proud mom Meredith, documenting one of many human trains the guys formed. I already can’t wait to get back and horse around with them.

Categories
Photos

Drummer Boys

Step into our beat lab, won’t you? 🙂
(Shot this afternoon at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.)

Categories
Christmas Photos

Christmasgr.ams

Over the holiday break I had fun shooting little pics of our guys, then processing & sharing them with the iPhone app Instagram. Here’s a little gallery.

Seeing the image at left just now, our friend Julieanne said, “It looks so old that it could be you in the photo.” I said, “Yeah, except that if it were me, my dad’s finger would be covering half the image.” 😉

Categories
Photos Zoos

Gettin’ Buffaloed

The other day we took the boys to Woolaroc, a former ranch/wildlife preserve of an Oklahoma oil baron, which is now a local attraction. There are plenty of indigenous and exotic animals to see, a fantastic Western art and artifact collection, as well as some vintage oilfield vehicles like fuel trucks and aircraft. Here’s a little gallery of our adventures. Henry, of course, went running after the big orange fuel truck on display and was just dying to climb aboard, while Finny was fascinated with the oil pumps, the 3-story high observation tower, huge stoic buffalo, and kid-sized old-west style playground. His enthusiasm for the old west has now resulted in him “jailing” us (the “bad dudes”) for offenses such as stealing lion blankies and stuffed monkeys, even though we’ve been framed by our local pint-sized sheriff!

Although the kids’ petting zoo was not officially open, our dudes did manage to get a little face- and fur-time with a few goats, sheep, and chickens. One of the great things about Woolaroc is that the wild animals are just roaming around freely on the grounds, and so we got some great close-up views of buffalo, deer, and elk from the car as we drove through. We even got to see some zebras, an ostrich, some llamas, and a zonkey (zebra + donkey, which looks like a zebra that just hasn’t bathed in awhile!).

Categories
Christmas Photos

S’mores n’ More

We’ve been having lots of tiny “OK” adventures. I’m typing this quickly between visits to the Oklahoma Aquarium & a Mexican restaurant. With the help of some new puffy jackets, we’ve been exploring the yard and neighborhood, after which we cooked up s’mores in the fireplace. Here’s our gallery.

By the way, I’m trying something new with our galleries: instead of creating Flash & HTML versions that live on this site, I’m hosting the photos on Flickr, meaning that they should be viewable everywhere (including my parents’ TV). If you run into any problems with the new setup, please let me know.

Categories
Christmas Photos

Christmas 2010: Joy to the Squirrels

Merry Christmas, everyone! We’re chilling (literally, the rare times we venture outside) with Margot’s folks. Both guys were brilliant travelers (note to self: leg-stretching layovers are kind of a great thing), and as you’d imagine we all had a ball opening presents today. I especially enjoyed an early morning exchange with Finn:

“Do you have to go to work today, Dad-O?”
“Nope, I’m hanging out with you guys!”
“Oh NO!!”

Ah, what beats unconditional appreciation from one’s child? 😉 Being kind of zonked, I’ll keep things brief and will just share our photos from the day (HTML). More to come, I’m sure, as our adventure continues.

Previously:

Categories
Videos Zoos

And Around We Go

Our man Finno is a born wheelman–at least when it comes to holiday carnival rides. Little Henry has to put on some inches before joining in the action, but boy will he be ready when the time comes. The video below combines two rides–one at the Zoo Lights in Oakland, the other at the SJ winter festival. Enjoy!

Categories
Christmas Videos

“Super Dizzying”

Okay, I have to admit two things up front:

  • One, this video could easily appear in a collection called “Portraits in Unwatchability” or “Experiments in Motion Sickness.”
  • Two, despite all the spinning, not all that much really happens.

So, you can’t say you weren’t warned. 😉 The other night we took advantage of some (rare) clear weather & took the lads to San Jose’s Christmas in the Park, a little set of carnival rides & holiday displays. The guys remain too little for ferris wheel rides, giving Finn a chance to practice his “glower” face, but we had a good time on some carousels, “bumpy cars,” and the spinning ballon-car ride you see here. Hen was a cool customer as usual, and Finn did well until then end when, Margot reports, he remarked “I hope it’ll be stopping soon!”

Categories
Videos Zoos

Zoo Lights!

“Neither rain nor cold nor gloom of night will stay these cherubic buddies from the swift enjoyment of their date with the zoo…”

After our first attempt got rained out a week earlier, on Sunday evening the Nack Pack rallied & met up with pals Bettie, Quade, and their folks Tara and Andy at the Oakland Zoo. Here you can see us enjoying the groovy nighttime zoo train, sighting a wallaby & a Macy’s-float-sized Henry face. 🙂

Categories
Halloween Photos

Shower cookies, colander hats, & more

Our picture-taking time has been a bit limited lately, but we’ve gathered together some good odds & ends into a little gallery (HTML). And check out Finn making a literal “holy cow”!

Categories
Halloween Photos Videos

Halloween Leftovers

Like a good zombie, our Halloween pix just won’t stay buried. 🙂

We’ve uploaded just a handful of photos (HTML) plus a little video showing our trip to the huge pumpkin patch at nearby Uesugi Farms. Note Finnbeard trying to master how to “glower,” later turning Henry’s felt candy bucket into a makeshift fez.

Categories
Photos Thanksgiving

Turkeys with a side of Nuts

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! We Nacks big and small had a fine turkey day. Dad-O started off the festivities by trying to stuff one of our little turkeys into our actual turkey (see pic in the gallery), which was met with lots of laughs.

Then we all headed out to the park for some sunshine and fresh air, since we were granted a rain-free, warmish day. The guys had a blast collecting acorns and playing in the sand. Henry was busy investigating the acorn “hats” while wearing his own acorn hat, and Finny was busy being the “pizza boss”, patting wet sand into a little tray-like container, and then “serving” us sticky clumps of sand pizza. G-man (dubbed “pizza boss baby”) got in on the action, and needless to say, both guys got totally wet and covered with sand in no time!

On the way home we passed by a pile of gigantic maple leaves, which were quickly put to use as wings by Finny in an effort to fly home rather than ride in the wagon. After nap time, it was time for the big dinner, and everyone found something to enjoy. Henry went nuts for the cranberry sauce, Finny for the gravy, and John and I for all of it! Enjoy the gallery (HTML) of today’s events!

[In the park we searched for in vain for a water-transferring container until Finn announced, “I have a great idea!” Without elaborating he took off running towards the fountain, produced an empty Doritos bag from the sand (it’s a classy park), and began filling it with agua. He also enjoyed chasing off some packs of pigeons, saying, “I don’t think they expected a pirate to attack them today!” –J.]

Categories
Photos

Paging Tiny Dr. Vandi

Finn-O & Mrs. Vandi from our dentist’s office have a long-distance mutual admiration thing going on. She gets a kick out of the blog, and for a long time he’s enjoyed pretending to go to Dr. Vandi’s office, bringing them sandwiches (bits of blue electrical tape), etc.

Recently we kicked things up a big notch, as Dr. & Mrs. V sent home a treasure trove of floss, toothbrushes, and–oh yeah–little surgical masks! Check out our aspiring dentist-in-training as he gives me a cleaning (“You’ve got some dirty teeth, Dad-O!”; thanks for noticing, bud ;-P) in this little gallery (HTML).

Categories
Photos

Random goings-on, Facebook edition

It’s sort of belatedly occurred to me that our parents, not being Facebook users, haven’t gotten to see the random “Mobile Ephemera” that we’ve been uploading on the go over the last year & change. So, Mom(s) and Dad(s), if you’re up for seeing some fun bits (everything from Finn modeling Mom-O’s boots to chubby-legged Henry meeting dinos at the doc’s), check this out. (You don’t need a password or anything.)

For our Facebook-enabled friends, as Gilda Radner would say, “Never mind.” 🙂

Categories
Photos

Area Tot Achieves Nirvana

Detecting “the Fruit of the Tollhouse” on my breath this AM, a bear-laden Henry started saying, “Cookie, cookie!!” As Margot says, “Double-fisting with bears, eating a cookie, and being held by Dad-O: it’s like a little guy delight sandwich!”

Here’s our happy fella moments ago:


(Click for larger)

Categories
Halloween Miscellaneous

One Last Halloween Photo

Courtesy of our neighbors Scott and Karen, who set up a Halloween photobooth on their front porch for all the trick-or-treaters. The guys were already coming down from their treat-induced sugar high!

Categories
Photos

Micronaxx Geographic

Apropos of nothing, our boys decided to experiment with a little techno-body modification on Saturday morning. (This is why Mom-O shouldn’t leave us alone together. :-))

Categories
Halloween Miscellaneous

Fireman Henry to the Rescue!

Here’s a fun shot of our G-man dressed up in his Halloween costume. He makes a handsome little fireman, doesn’t he?

Categories
Halloween Photos

Shiver me timbers!!

Finny is trying really hard to be a “bad pirate” but darn it, he’s too cute to be a believable scallywag!  Especially when “Arrrr!” is pronounced “Owww!”  (click each photo for a larger version)

[Update from playgroup: Mom Ariel Kurtze reports, “”We had a very cute pirate at playgroup this morning! And a very sharing one too, he let Sabrina play with his scimitar :)” –J.]

Categories
Photos

Marley Gras

Want to get a team of toddlers eating out of the palm of your hand? (Figuratively, I mean; they’re all too willing to do it literally.) Get ’em some Mardi Gras beads!

Finn, and Henry in particular, were so enamored of little Harper Hogarty’s bead collection that I started calling him “Jacob Marley” after the chain-dragging ghost in A Christmas Carol. Check it out:

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture shots of the three tots running a racetrack pattern, with Finn popping out to startle the little ones (“Surprise!”) and Henry trying to keep up (“Prise!”). It was high-speed hilarity. [Photo courtesy of Harper’s dad, “Papa Hog” Tom]