Crossing things off the list

Unofficial start to summer was last weekend and it came in cold and rainy, but looks like the heat is coming in this week!

So anyway, we have been chipping things off our bucket list slowly but surely, here's a list of what we have done so far...

~ Make a Fairy Garden ~ For Earth Day we made fairy gardens!  I didn't get around to doing a seperate post on them but here are some pics

The finished product ended up looking like a hot mess (should have pre moistened the soil, live and learn), but they ended up having fun with them and they still play with everything and water the plants so I call this a success!

~ Have a front yard fire and make s'mores ~ Well we had a fire just before A's birthday, it was chilly and I didn't get a picture of the fire itself, but I did get a few pics of the s'mores.  Turns out our girls just don't like s'mores, they love all the pieces in their raw form and separate, but melt them and put them together?  No.Way.

~ Have a Super Fun Super Hero Family Photo Shoot ~ Our good friend Miriam over at Five Oceans Photography (Here is her facebook page!) took our family pics for us, it was so great to get in front of the camera for a while and she caught some really great moments!  Can't wait to get some printed out and update our pics on the walls :)

~ Have a Picnic ~  Back when I was working on my final for Photography, we took a trip to the park so I could take some pics.  While we were at it, I packed up a picnic dinner and Hubby and the girls set it up while I was doing my pics!  We had such a good time, I think this needs to be come a monthly thing if not more :)

~ Go to Free Comic Book Day ~ Posted about this one here, but I found one more pic!

 

~ Go Camping ~ We went Camping over Memorial Day weekend, it was our first trip as a family!  And it was a cold, wet weekend :) but we made the best of it and I have a full post coming soon!!

~ Put up a Clothes Line ~ I didn't quite put up a full clothes line yet, but did get a folding rack that I have been drying almost all of our clothes on out on our porch so I'm counting this one as complete.  It has been great not having to use our dryer all the time, between a simple $15 clothes rack (soon to be two racks so I can dry EVERYTHING outside) and our solar panels we have noticed a huge difference in our energy savings!!

~ Go to the Drive-In ~ This one was a Mommy & Daddy only thing, but I think part of having a happy family is having a good a great relationship between Mom and Dad :) . Part of that is having some all alone adult time, so we loaded Chevy Potter up with pillows and blankets, loaded up the cooler up with some soda and popped some popcorn then headed to the drive in to see Iron Man 3.  When we got there we got a couple of Sundaes and played some Timeline, it was a great night!  (We happened to be in our matching Superman shirts from going to Free Comic Book Day earlier, people were really not to happy to see that!  We kept getting comments about it not being a Superman movie...Really people?!)

~Make Sidewalk Chalk Paint ~ Yesterday we made sidewalk chalk paint! It was so easy and the girls had so much fun with it!  Used equal parts cornstarch and water then added 1 drop of food coloring to each of the muffin cups, quick and easy and loads of fun...

Games We Play - Dice Games

I am pretty much in love with dice games.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE games in general, but with dice games we can sit down after a long day and just play a couple of rounds, throw the dice back in the box and get on to bed.  They (mostly) don't require a lot of set up and (mostly) don't require a lot of brain power which is especially awesome after a long, stressful, exhausting day.  

While looking for games to keep us occupied while waiting in line at PAX I came across my first TableTop Episode, it happened to be This One which showcased Tsuro, Get Bit and Zombie Dice.  We decided not only that Zombie Dice would be awesome for line waiting, but we had to run out and get these games the next day.  Essentially that episode of TableTop is what set us of on this game playing journey :) 

But anyway, I digress.  This post is, after all supposed to be about the games we play, not what got us started playing them. 

So on to Zombie Dice this game is super simple to play, skill level is low,  learning curve is basically zero and it is most definitely not a cooperative game.  The idea is that, well, brains are good!  You like to roll brains!  Runners you re-roll, so they are the neutral party.  Shotgun blasts are bad, three blasts and you are gone AND you loose all your brains, stop rolling before you get to that point :) 

This is a pretty well played game for us, we probably play it at least once a week.  Plus it's pretty portable so I throw it in my purse when we go out on date nights, it's nice to have something we can play so we don't end up both playing on our phones for half the night!

The next game is called Pig, though I've been trying to come up with a new name for it since the Pig game we usually play is a card game we play with my Mom-in-Law.  But anyway this game is also super easy with no learning curve.  The rules of the game are simple, be the first to get above 100 and you win.  You can roll as many times as you want before you stop, but make sure you stop before you roll a 1, if you roll a 1 and your turn is over and you don't get any points, roll snake eyes and you loose all points you have collected up to that point.  

The first time we played this we played with normal six sided dotted dice, but I decided it would be more interesting to play with some different dice so I pulled out some others.  The hardest part about this game is adding up the points when your exhausted, other than that it's great fun! It will be an excellent one to introduce to the girls for number recognition and counting.  

The last game here I got as a mother's day gift, and I love it!  This one takes a bit more thinking and effort and is a bit more involved than the other two but it's still easy to play and it's loads of fun (though Hubby will disagree with that statement since I kicked his butt...).  Essentially you are rolling the dice in this game to build Roads, Settlements, Cities and Armies.  Now neither Hubby nor I have ever played any of the variations of the board game of Settlers of Catan so we didn't know really what we needed to build any of these items so it took us a while to figure out what we actually had or needed with each roll.  It took us about 40 minutes to play instead of the suggested 15-20 minutes on the box.  

I like this one the best of the three I think.  It's got just enough extra that it's not just about the luck of the roll, but also it's not so involved that we can't just play a quick game after we put the girls in bed and before we go to bed ourselves.

When I was researching this game I found that a lot of people out there don't really like it, but mostly they are people who had already played and love the full version of Catan.  Never having played that version I didn't have anything to compare the dice against.  I think in the future we will absolutely be adding Settlers of Catan to our collection, but I think this will still get more play time since it's a) quick and b) portable.  Love those portable games.

Gallery Trip

Last semester at school was my last semester for a while, at least until the girlies are in school full time.  The photography class I took was probably one of the hardest things I've done in a while, it seriously shook me, but I *think* I came out at the end better for it.  

One of the harder things I had to do for the class was pick out a photo to print, mat and submit to a jurried Art Show.  Hind sight being what it is, I wish I had tried to submit a couple more, but being that we were learning this whole matting process last minute the stress turned out to be a bit much.  

Anyway...my one submission actually made it in!  I ended up going with a pic of C just because it was a pic I liked, and one that I hadn't really used for class.  It was one I felt confident in.

So opening night I got all dressed up and a friend of mine and I went to the gallery to see it up on the walls. 

                                 

Some of the other art that was up on those walls was just amazing.  It was a department wide show so there was everything from digital media to paintings and drawings up and then upstairs there was an amazing exhibit done by the independent study students.  I knew right away that I needed to bring the girls to just see the beautiful colors and amazing textures.  So a week later we made the time to bring them down.

C was amazing, I truly am blown away sometimes about how big a girl she is becoming.  I told her she could look at all she wanted to but that she could not touch, and so she stepped back and just looked.  She definitely honed in on two favorites, one was a digital print of two people sitting at a dinner table (which she is looking at below). 

And the other was one of the independent study pieces (seen below)  It's rather interesting because this piece wasn't one of my favorites, I think the colors and largeness of the piece are what drew her to it :) 

A on the other hand is a 2 year old, and as 2 year olds will do all she wanted was to run and climb the stairs rather than look at the art and that is a.okay with me. 

Bottom line is this Gallery has (I think) about 4 shows a year, it is free to go and see and usually there aren't that many people in there, so it's a great way to expose the girls to some truly  amazing art and we will definitely be taking them there again in the future!!

(Pint Size) Games We Play - The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel

For Mother's Day I got two games ;) one to play with the girls (The Sneaky Snacky Squirrel)  and one for hubby and me to play (Catan Dice).  So far we've only been able to play Sneaky Snacky Squirrel, but the girls are addicted :) 

The game itself is beautiful and very vintage looking.  Everything is nice and sturdy and, well, just plain adorable.  To play the game you spin the spinner and it lands on an option to use the squirrel tongs to take nuts from the tree or from another player, skip a turn, or (much to C's horror) have all your nuts blown back into the tree.  

This is an excellent game for the little ones, it's great for color recognition and motor skills and the spinner is fun!  Plus it helps to start teaching them how to loose gracefully...or at least not throw a tantrum if all the nuts they collected get blown back into the tree or they have to miss a turn...

Final Verdict?  LOVE this game, it has already made it into our nightly rotation.  It's a game that kids and adults can both play and nobody gets bored :) 

Games We Play - Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries

We recently picked up Ticket to Ride, Nordic Countries and the verdict?  Love it but it's going to take some getting used to :)

The first time I ever heard of Ticket to Ride was on an episode of Tabletop (seen here), then we borrowed it from the PAX library and played it there at PAX.  I really liked it then, but it seemed to be a game that a) took a while to play and b) needed more than two players to really have a good time playing.  Which will be great when the girls are old enough to play, but not so much right now. 

But then we were browsing games at the Comic Book store and I found Ticket to Ride, Nordic Countries.  This version of Ticket to Ride is specifically designed to be played by 2-3 people.  I opened the box expecting it to be pretty much the same as the original version but smaller and with Nordic Destinations, that expectation was kind of quashed the second we started setting up and reading the directions. 

First thing I noticed was the board doesn't read from left to right but from top to bottom.  Cool, but confusing when trying to find destinations lol.  Then they also add in the concept of Ferries and Tunnels which are a great addition to the game, but most of the first part of the game is spent building up your hand so you get all the locomotives you need to purchase a ferry route or building up the colors in your hand to lay down a tunnel route. 

All in all it's a pretty great game for a small game night or even a stay at home date night, It's slow to start while you are building up your hand but once everything gets going it goes fast, about 20-25 minutes in all. Last time we were really getting used to the board and special routes, but next time I think we will start getting a bit more competitive. 

Free Comic Book Day

Back when we visited Zombie Planet for the first time back on Table Top Day, they told us about this awesome thing called Free Comic Book Day, it sounded like tons of fun so we made sure to get out and participate! 

 

Before now I have never picked up a comic book in my life, everything I have learned about comics has been through movies, but I'm pretty hooked on the movies so I figured why not? 

 

We picked up a bunch of free books, some just for the grown ups and some we let the girls pick out...C ended up picking out Tinker Bell and A picked out The Smurfs.

 

A doesn't really have the tolerance to sit and look at or have these books read to her (and they really aren't sturdy enough for her yet), but C on the other hand...

 

C loves them, now every time we stop into Zombie Planet she wants to go upstairs and pick out a new book.  Lately she has been picking out My Little Ponies.  Now whenever A goes down for a nap or starts getting ready for bed C and I cuddle up and read a few pages.  I love reading these to her, they are a step up from the books we have been reading her.  They have a plot and good guys and bad guys and they still have awesome colorful illustrations.  Usually we don't get through a whole book in a sitting, but that's okay too because it leaves her with some anticipation for next time and we can review what happened when we pick it back up!

 

 

PAX East 2013 - Part 2

Day 2 was a bit more laid back and relaxed, since we had really seen everything the day before that we really wanted to see we skipped the line and instead watched from above as the masses were let into the Expo Hall.

 

After that we took in a panel on Education Gamification, a concept that was pretty much completely new to me, I mean maybe it was there before but now I had a name to put to it.

 

When the panel was over we decided to take a walk through the indie game section, and boy was that place packed!! But it was well worth it to muddle through the crowds.  Most of the games that were out there were made for iOS systems and it was pretty amazing to get to meet with the teams that had developed these games and graphics, it will be interesting to follow some of them to see how successful they become. 

 

We next met up for lunch with my cousin, this time the food was better but it was a wicked long wait!  From there we decided to wait in *just one more* line.  This time it was because Moga was giving away their Moga Pocket Controller for free, you just had to show them your Android phone (no it doesn't work with iOS devices *yet*) and they would give you one.  It was too good a deal to pass up so we headed down.  The line wasn't that long a wait, maybe a half hour or so, and you got to watch people getting made into some pretty awesome zombies in the meantime. 

 

After that was all taken care of we went back down to the table top area to spend our last couple of hours :) we played some Timeline, Nuts! and Ubongo Extreme.  All were awesome games. 

 

So all in all this year was a pretty great year.  Can not wait till next year when we will absolutely be getting 3 day passes :)

 

 

Revolution 60 was a choose your own adventure type game for the iPad that was developed by a group of women, can't wait to get it once it comes out, low learning curve, it's simple and intuitive.  A nice easy game I can see myself playing through till the end.  (something that has never happened...)

 

Another game that seemed pretty cool to try was Colliding Forces.  We didn't get a chance to play this one since the line was too long, but we got to watch in and it was described to us as Air Hockey with Elements.  Will absolutely try it when it comes out.

PAX East 2013 - Part 1

So yeah, this is a pretty pic heavy post and in the pics didn't upload in order so I'll just leave them be at the bottom...

 

We may have had a good time at PAX last year, but this year was amazing.  Last year we were a bit overwhelmed by everything there was to see and do, it was Easter weekend, and it was our first time being away from the girls over night.  This year was totally different.  We had passes for both Saturday and Sunday, we arrived in Boston on Friday and just let ourselves relax.  We walked around for a bit, got some dinner then went back to the hotel and watched a movie (Wreck it Ralph and it was great!)  Saturday we got an early start and through a series of fortunate events (in the guise of security officers making their job more efficient by making use of each and every door that could be opened) we ended up in the very front of the line. 

 

When "doors" opened we made it straight for the Blizzard both to test out their new game Hearthstone.  Which happened to be pretty awesome, I love the fact it is going to be available as an iOS app because, well, I can play those :).  The colors and graphics on it are amazing and the learning curve seems pretty low so I think we will definitely be getting this one once it comes out. 

 

The rest of the day we pretty much did the line waiting thing, we checked out the popular titles that seemed like they would be fun to play...and you know what?  I don't really remember any of those titles lol. 

 

I do remember we stood inline for an hour plus to watch the 6 minute video for the new Assassins Creed and well?  I *really* was not that impressed.  Pirates are cool, but that's about it... I realize that I have never played this game in any of it's previous variations before, but if it's the fourth generation of the game I really thought the graphics would have been much better.  But anyway, we got to sit down for 6 minutes and a free set of blow up swords for the girls to play with so yay for swag :). 

 

Last year we were home by 5, crazy how different this year was.  We had teamed up with my cousin about half way through the day.  After the Assassins Creed wait we decided to head out to find some food because wholly jeeze the prices at the convention center were outrageous, but anyway we had some awesome burgers and fries and then, wait for it, went back.   

 

When we went back it was like a whole nother world after dark lol.  We checked out the "vintage" game room (I'm sure there is a better name for it, but I have no idea what that is so that's what I'm calling it.) They had all the classic game consoles going in there, it was great :)

 

After that we headed down to the tabletop area, I had no idea this place even existed last year and it was *A-may-zing*.  I mean it, I think the Table Top play was my favorite part of the weekend.  Since the Expo hall was closed by this point everyone pretty much migrated over and grabbed a game and a table and started playing.  There were venders there selling their games, but there was also this PAX library that had all sorts of games you could borrow and try before you actually bought anything.

 

Games we tried were ~ "We didn't play test this at all" (probably the most completely random game I have ever seen) and "Ticket To Ride (Loved it!)

 

And that was pretty much it for the night...Day 2 post still to come! 

 

This Woman *made* her dress out of Magic the Gathering Cards, it was just amazing.

 

 

Table Top Gaming area, was completely mobbed all weekend...