The First Step to the New Journey

I know I said that I was going to start updating this blog site on a more regular basis, and obviously our weekly publication has quickly turned into a monthly magazine, as I fail to add anything new, not even a happy birthday to Shelly, which was on the 21st of July. In short, there is no excuse, and though it is doubtful anyone is still checking our blog, or if they are, it is only to see new pictures of Madison and not to find out anything about us. Regardless, I am working to be more consistant and to give a reason to checking our blog regularly. Right now I am not trying to think of what to write about, but where to begin.

In the last blog, Shelly, Madison, and Tom were starting off on the Great Drive to Oregon. They obviously made it, and it went pretty smoothly, besides Tom slight detour to see the Golden Gate Bridge at 3 a.m.

The First weekend up there Shelly witnessed Jered graduating from college (congragulations again Jered), and the second weekend, I was up there to witness Jered and Lindsey's marriage (congragulations again you two).


(I would write more about the wedding, except that we have a whole month of updating and I only have an hour before bedtime. I will say this: it was nice to see everyone, and everyone was there, including my own parents. It was way too hot for Oregon, but that is better than raining, a more typical Oregon phenomenon.) Lindsey and Jered are now living in Klamath Falls, where Lindsey is finishing up school.

After Jered and Lindsey's wedding, Shelly, Madison, and I drove east (a few hours behind my Mom and Dad) to Sunriver, Oregon. There we met up with my sister, Sarah, and her husband, Timothy, and their children, India & Elias. Sunriver was nice. If you're unfamilar with the place, it is a planned resort 10 miles east of bend. I have mixed feelings about such places. First of all, it is not really getting away when you are looking into the back of another house. It is more like changing locations. Secondly, I think most people go in the summer to play golf. Too bad no one in my family plays golf. That said, there are tons of things to do with children, from going swimming to building teddy bears. Most importantly, it was nice to be together for the week, and the 4500sq ft home, which was completely done right, helped make sure we were not too close.




I had taken two weeks of leave, and Shelly and I had these grand plans of spending a couple of days driving home and seeing things such as the Redwoods and Monteray. We started this adventure, driving from Sunriver to Crater Lake. Our plan was flawless. We would wait until Madison needed to nap, then we would drive the 2 hours to Crater Lake, and Madison would wake up in time for us all to hike around and be the all-American family. Well, we loaded up the car, waited until Madison was sleepy, and started our trip ...except Madison did not sleep and instead screamed for the two hours. I know what you are thinking, "Wow, that sucked she must have been fussy for the two hour drive and cried a lot." No, she literally cried/screamed for the whole two hours. It was amazingly painful. It was not until we reached Crater Lake National Park did she finally fall asleep -sort of put a kink into the all-American family plan. The result was Shelly and I taking turns looking at the big water-filled hole.

After driving around Crater Lake, Shelly, Madison, and I made our way to Klamath Falls, where we planned to have a short visit with Emilie and here fiance Steve. This visit stretched from hello to staying for their nephews birthday party. This was mainly because I had no desire to get back into the car with the Little Monster. Shelly and I quickly formed a new plan. We would wait until Madison's bedtime to start our drive and then drive as long as we could through the night, finish the drive the next morning, and be home by early afternoon. The Redwoods have been there for Thousands of years, they'll be there next year.

That was a very brief synopsus of family vacation, which completely ignores my sister's consistent tromping of me in Scrabble or the numerous good micro-brews we tasted in Bend, which is enough for a blog entry by itself, but there is a lot more to write still.

We got home 4 days early, which, in retrospect, was a good thing for I forgot to mention that while Shelly and Madison were up in Oregon that first weekend, I had to move us across town. Our old landlord and his family moved back into the house we were renting, and so we moved to Point Loma's new Liberty Station. It is a nice place, and it's new, which is a nice change for us, but talk about institutionalized living. First, this is the closest either Shelly or I have been to ever living in an apartment, and though what we have is a townhouse, it is one of many, exactly the same looking, townhouses, and there is very little privacy, looking into the back of one set of neighbors' places or into the front of the other set of neighbors' places. Seriously, it is a little disturbing that I know the husband of the family behind us wears yellow kitchen gloves to wash the dishes or that the old man infront of us has several lady friends. This is all information I don't need to know or want to know and can only imagine what they know about us. In short, I sometime feel like I am part of Orwell's 1984.

Alright, I am only two weeks behind on the blog now -we're rolling! Let's see what happened in the last two weeks. The biggest news, which is another blog itself is that Shelly had her first weekend away from Madison and more dramatically me (what? it's not dramatic to spend a night away from me? Think what you want?). This also fell over her birthday, so I don't know if she planned it this way, but I have my suspicions. Last weekend, she went back to Oregon for Emily's and Steve's wedding -the third wedding, and not the last wedding, of the summer.

The wedding was in K Falls (that's what the cool people call Klamath Falls). I unfortunately had to stay home with the Kumquat, but Shelly had a great time, though she probably could have been in Fargo, MN, and would have had a great time. Besides an old milk truck converted into a beer truck,

I really don't know much about the weekend, which I am not sure is a good thing. What I do know is that she was still tired when she got back, so obviously she wasn't too innocent. Seriously, Shelly had a great time and said it was a beautiful wedding. Being the wedding connisuer myself, I wanted to talk about their cake. I am not even sure what kind of cake it was, or how it tasted, but the icing was made from melted Tootsie Rolls, which is almost as cool as the beer truck. Personally, I like Tootsie Rolls, and my guess is that it was a pretty tasty cake. Anyway, congragulations Em & Steve, welcome to the begining of the end of you life.

That is really the best of the news. Madison is becoming more mobile, which is not necesserily a good thing. She is extremely smart and more stubborn and ornery than her mom. These are not really good characteristics for your 11 month old. She already is testing her leash, and Shelly and I are already trying to lay down the "hamma". Unfortunately, it is really hard to keep a straight face when telling her "NO," especially when her bottom lip starts to quiver and she looks at you with big old puppy dog eyes. It's like a cartoon character's expressions, and a lot of times Shelly and I have to turn our head so not to laugh. It's going to be a long road ahead -congratulations again Steve.

Here is the latest picture of Madison exemplifying her version of the Clean Plate Club. Personally, we think she kind of looks like an Ewok.


With our next blog we will be releasing our new album, What to do when your bored with instruments. That's right, the Fortune family is starting a band. Inspired by Big Smith Hillbilly Band
, Shelly will be playing the harmonica, I the spoons, and Madison will be starring on the kazoo.

Until next time, "Ya'll take care now."






In case you are wondering why I labeled this The First Step to the New Journey, so am I. The fact of the matter is that one friend is so tired of not having any updates to the blog that he insisted I update it this past weekend with this title. So, perhaps it is my motivation to update the blog on a regular basis and that itself will be a journey.