Okay, the title exaggerates a bit, but herding several toddlers plus Zack while chatting up the moms as well at Build A bear was a little stressful.   Zack was ornery early on, but thank goodness my mom and dad were there to handle him (he absolutely adores my mother).  Aside from one boy being freaked out by the noise the stuffing machine made and ( Read more... )

My daughter will be four on Sunday.  We're celebrating it with a party Saturday at Build A Bear.  I've never been to a Build a Bear and imagine keeping several toddlers from losing their shit when them make stuffed armadillos or whatever will be a challenge, but the thing to note here is that my daughter is going to be four freakin' years old.

Where ( Read more... )

My stoner rugby teammate Brownie, who is the current VP and former president and pack captain, has deftly outmaneuvered me.  Instead of listing the starters, subs, and reserves for Nationals, he just put out a list of all 28 of us ( Read more... )

With a game this Saturday i blew off gaming Thursday night and went to practice.  Afterward a bunch of us headed to the local dive bar (as usual) for beers and food.  Our pack captain Nails was huddled with the president Joe scribbling stuff in a notebook.  With nationals about a month away we have to come up with a roster.  We're allowed 28 names ( Read more... )

In one of our weird quirks, Laura and I don't buy each other gifts for our anniversary.  We also ignore Valentine's Day as well, opting for being romantic and thoughtful all year as opposed to just twice.  We do usually collaborate on a shared gift or two, and this year we got ourselves surround sound for downstairs and tickets to see jonathan ( Read more... )

Another 'holiday' spent home with the kids at the expense of leaving my father alone at work - at least it was probably a quiet day (I hope).  The kids were fun as we finally had a nice day and I ran 'em ragged - right now they're watching episodes of The Tick and soon will be crashing hard with visions of a candy bonanza awaiting them on Sunday.  ( Read more... )

So I've had a few people hoist an eyebrow at me when I mentioned that my wife is going up to PAX this weekend and I'm not.  I suppose I could have some fun and say Laura never invited me to go along or some other frippery, but the truth is that when she asked if I'd mind if she went I realized that at the time my parents were in no shape to take ( Read more... )

This past weekend something pretty significant to Laura and myself occurred when we moved the video monitor out of Becky's room and into Zack's.  His audio only one had pretty much died, and with 4 just around the corner Becky doesn't really require overseeing at night.  If she has to go to the bathroom she just gets up and goes.  Her only real ( Read more... )

Really, just a very, very cool weekend.  Nothing crazy or flashy or even unusual, but extremely enjoyable nonetheless.  We were visited by viking_cat , kid_cthulhu and their dogs.  KC and Finn had an event down in southern Jersey, so she left early Saturday morning and Poor VC and Tess were stuck with us.  There was much walking, talking, eating (deep fried bacon, ( Read more... )

Decent work-wise, good time spent with the Wife, and of course gaming.  Not a bad Thursday.  I am coming to realize that either I have some serious memory issues or just construct terrific mental blocks - either way I keep being told I've had conversations I don't remember and I have no reason to doubt the source.  I'm terrible with names when I ( Read more... )