100's Day

Today was 100's Day at the elementary school. Elizabeth got to help with the party in David's class. David reports the party was tons of fun. Analeigh also reported having a great time. As you can see, her class all got t-shirts to mark the occasion.

Chef David

In order to support David in his dreams of becoming a chef, we found a cheap used copy of Better Homes & Gardens' New Junior Cookbook. Today he made us Teeny Tiny Tacos for dinner. We look forward to whatever he decides to make for us next.

After School

Before coming home from school the kids spent some time on the playground. Analeigh learned how fun it is to have her swing twisted up to a point where she spins around, and around, and around.

Then we swung by the library where the children's section has tiny little chairs for Cailainn to sit in.

It was a great day!

Ballet Recital

Analeigh wanted to be in ballet, so we enrolled her last fall. As time went by, she lost interest and asked to quit. However, we explained that she had made a commitment and would have to honor that by continuing with ballet through her recital, at which point she could either quit or continue. It appears that Analeigh is maintaining her commitment to retire and spend more time with her loved ones.

And so it is that we present pictures from Analeigh's first and last recital on the stage at the city hall gymnasium:

Lastly, a picture of Analeigh with her ballet teacher after the recital:

Hiding Place

Analeigh found an interesting hiding place today - the bathroom laundry basket. We hope she never learns about the spaciousness of the dryer in the laundry room...

X-Wing Miniatures Game

This year Santa delivered Ben's gift a little late - which is kind or Ben's fault for not deciding on what he wanted until rather late in the season. Fortunately the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game Core Set showed up at our door eventually.

Ben typically isn't a fan of table top games because most of them require you to paint your own miniature models and have lots of money to buy lots of miniatures so you can overwhelm your opponent. There are also a series of complex rules to learn and the games take a super-long time to play - but not in X-Wing!

All the miniatures come pre-painted. Each ship/pilot combo has a point value assigned. So instead of buying a bunch of miniatures and overwhelming your opponent, you just agree to a point limit (like 100 points) and come up with which ships and pilots your want. You can play right out of the box, or buy expansions and get other ships that look cool (Elizabeth's parents bought Ben a Millennium Falcon).

As for the problem of complex rules, the game is simple enough that Ben can play with seven-year-old David. There is a video tutorial that can have you playing in 15 minutes (you can also add other rules as you get more comfortable, but even those only take a few more minutes to learn).

As for the problem of games taking a super-long time and lasting days or even weeks, we found a video with a couple of guys playing the game in under 9 minutes - that's right NINE minutes. Side note: David thinks the guy named Matthew is funny and likes that one of the players names is Dave.

Finally, David wanted us to include a video of Matthew playing the game with a guy named Andy. This video shows the game being played with other expansion pack ships, like the B-Wing and TIE Bomber. Enjoy!

TIE Fighter Pilots

David has been building a lot of Star Wars spaceships lately. Today he and Cailainn were flying Tie Fighters around the house (even though Cailainn was holding her's backwards).