Category: Photos

It’s a leaf… it’s a bug… it’s a leaf-bug! (plus one skeptical-looking engineer) 🙂

Photo for future reference, just in case it’s needed. 😉

The little guy can’t let the big guy hog all the limelight, now can he? 🙂

Thanks to our photographer-friend Maria for the photo. Click for a slightly larger version.

Ladies, in about 20 years, it’s all over for ya. You’ve been warned. 🙂

(Click for a larger version.)

[Update: Seeing this post, the subject says, “That’s Finny up there… bein’ a nudist.”]

After weeks of anticipation, yesterday we departed for the Island of Sodor (er, the nearby mountain town of Felton) to ride the rails with our big buddy Thomas the Tank Engine! Finn & I had come over last year with Grandma & Grandpa Nack, but he was too little to remember it, and Henry & Margot were attending for the first time. (Last year we somehow weren’t up for taking a 2-week-old on a steam train.) As you’d imagine, we had a ball, and with the brief exception of bath time, Finn has yet to relinquish his special Thomas souvenir badge.

We even got to meet Sir Topham Hatt (“that plut’,” Finn says–short for “plutocrat”), whom Finn wanted to offer some goldfish until realizing that “his boca doesn’t move.” I think Henry may make an even better Churchill/Hatt figure, as you may see in the a gallery of good times (HTML). Plus, here’s a bit of video:

Oh, and though my dad couldn’t join us in person this year, he was certainly there in spirit. 🙂

On Wednesday, Finny & I snuck off to the wilds of Ben Lomond, CA–the small nearby mountain town that’s home to Hoot, Milos, Alex, and–it turns out–some enormous horses. Despite his concerns, Finn was not eaten by a horse, and he proved more interested in eating sliced apples himself than feeding them to the big guys. Highlights included seeing big Nick (the white horse) drop what his owner called “road apples” (think we’ve been singing about just that ever since? right you are!); seeing those carted off in a wheelbarrow; and watching the giant horses roll around in the dust (what Finn called their “play area”).

Here’s a little gallery (HTML), as well as a video:

 

During my folks’ recent visit, Finn took quite a shine to helping with some gardening tasks, to the point that I now have to keep him from “weeding” the lawn bare. Even little Henry got in on the action, brandishing his own tools.

Finn and Grandma Nack teamed up to stuff his new giraffe (whom he curiously dubbed “The Badaff”) full of cotton balls, and he and both GPs enjoyed lots of quality storytime. In particular Grandpa Nack invited Finn to the gazebo for some thrilling readings from my childhood copies of Babar books. I can’t tell you how great it was to see the two of them delighting in tales of mermaids, lost monkey princesses, kleptomanical crocs (“bad dudes!”), crude dummies, and more. Here’s the customary little gallery (HTML).

We’re a bit behind in sharing a gallery from my folks’ recent visit. In the meantime, here are Grandpa Nack & Finny getting their hair blown back in a session of “Kindasteep“:

(Here’s a larger version.)

(cue old-timey radio announcer voice)

Starring…
      Grandpa Nack!
and
      G-Man!

in a bone-chilling adventure battling the sinister forces of Nack family light fixtures!!

No Henrys were harmed in the making of this motion picture. 🙂 (Click for a larger version.)

Good times, I tell ya. 🙂

We had a great time celebrating the 4th of July with our squirrels. It was a gorgeous, sunny day (“nottoohot!” as Finny would say), and we spent most of it outside. First off, Dad-o and Finny hit the hardware store for some mulch and tomfoolery with plumbing fixtures. At one point, Finny dubbed Henry “Flying G” after seeing us lift Henry up off the ground by his arms to get him up stairs & over curbs while he practices his walking. We think that’s a pretty terrific nickname to add to the list! Then it was off to a neighborhood barbecue at lunch time, complete with water balloons, games, hot dogs, and popsicles. When we returned home, our long-dormant fountain was burbling away, thanks to our supercool neighbor Richard.

After naptime, we played in the yard then headed out for a BBQ with some friends and their kiddos, both of whom are Finny’s age. Henry really dug the Radio Flyer and eating ice from the cooler, and Finn was having a ball in the cardboard box fort and riding around on kamikaze-style on a scooter in the driveway, crashing it into the bamboo like the Japanese chimp in one of his favorite YouTube videos. Here’s our little gallery (HTML).

As for Mom-o and Dad-o, we enjoyed the company of some other adults (woohoo!) and the fruits of our friend Derek’s labor over the Weber grill. Our dudes were pretty exhausted by the time we got them home and rolled into bed. We didn’t hang around long enough to catch any official fireworks, but the M-80’s being detonated a few houses down the street kept us (but not the dudes!) awake for a while.

[PS–I’m guessing Margot was more comfortable this year, not being insanely pregnant this time around. 🙂 –J.]

I’ve long thought that the phrase “kid in a candy store” should really be “kid in a hardware store.” Finn & I have enjoyed untold hours cruising the aisles of the nearby OSH, futzing with flanges, banging on PVC “drums,” marveling at weed whackers, and more.

This past Sunday he somehow conned talked me into buying a little clog-busting “drain snake”–just a peg and a handle on the ends of a flexible metal rod. He was enthralled all day with it, at one point fashioning it into The World’s Least Efficient Utensil. Here’s a handful of images (HTML).

[Tip o’ the hat to our friend Maria, lover of basic home improvement as well as the culinary arts. Clearly Finn’s a man cut from the same cloth.]

The Nack Family Homebody Emancipation continues! On Sunday Finn & rolled to the bike shop to score a new helmet for Henry, meaning that he’ll soon be able to join us for rides in the great two-man Burley trailer that my folks gave us at his birth. Let the rolling son-der begin!