Birthday Party – Check

Yesterday was my son’s 18th birthday party. He will actually turn 18 next week, so we celebrated with a gathering of several of his friends at Dave & Buster’s. The food was good, and the kids enjoyed playing the video games. Michael had a great time.

I was a little bit anxious leading up to the party, wondering if everyone would show up and we would have the right number of people. We had had his party last year at the same place, so I wasn’t super anxious about how the event would go from that perspective. Everything turned out great. Michael enjoyed seeing his friends, the amount of food was perfect, and I had a great time socializing with the adults, who were all good friends of mine.

Afterwards I even remembered my other tasks for the day, picking up Michael’s prescriptions and calling my Dad for his birthday, and this morning I remembered to send a note to school excusing Michael’s absence on Friday for a stomach bug. Of course, I also woke up this morning worried about some other stuff that I haven’t thought about in a couple of weeks. It’s like my brain just focuses on whatever is most important, and when that is done, it picks the next thing in line to worry about. I’m not sure why my brain works that way, but it happens all the time so I’m sort of used to it.

I didn’t take any pictures at the party, but Michael’s dad did and said he would email them to me. So hopefully I will be able to add some pictures to this post soon. Edited to add: Pictures now included, courtesy of Michael’s dad.

A Few Good Sci Fi Shows

I have always enjoyed science fiction and fantasy. When I was younger, I had an extensive book collection and would reread favorites over and over. I no longer have the books but I still enjoy the genre. Recently I have been watching a few good sci fi shows that I wanted to share.

Travelers – this is a time travel show. Travelers come from the future to our time to try to change events to make the future better. I absolutely loved this show and binged watched it in one weekend. It has two seasons and is on Netflix.

Extant – led by Halle Berry, this is a show set in the future that involves both humanoid robots and alien life. I really enjoyed the futuristic setting and the different ethical dilemmas that came up. It is also two seasons and is on Amazon Prime as well as CBS All-Access.

Lost in Space – this is a remake of an old show which I have surprisingly not seen. It is also set in the future and centers on a group of people who have set out to colonize another planet. Something goes wrong and they end up stranded somewhere else. This is on Netflix and there is one season so far. Joe and I watched it together and both liked it.

The Crossing – this is another time travel show. A group of people appear in the water off the coast of an American town and say they have come from the future to escape a war. The US government gets involved and the mystery deepens as the show goes on. It’s quite good! It’s a current show on ABC and all seven episodes that have come out so far are available on their app at the time of this post.

Have you seen any of these and, if so, what did you think of them?  Do you have any recommendations of other shows I might like?

Adventures in Gaming

Our Miniatures

A few months ago, my son Michael came to me with an idea – he wanted to learn how to play Dungeons & Dragons. Luckily, there is a weekly game held at a game store very close to our house, and I heard they were open to new players. So I took Michael over and the Dungeon Master (DM) helped him make a character (a dwarf cleric) and then walked him through the game play. He loved it!

After a couple of times, the DM convinced me to give it a try myself. I decided to be an elf wizard and it was actually a lot of fun. So I asked Joe if he was interested and he checked out the various races and classes on the website and decided to be a half-orc fighter.

Since then, we have been going every other Wednesday night to play D&D as a family. (We go to a life group connected to our church on the opposite weeks.)

Bag of Dice

We recently started a new campaign with new characters and are really enjoying the adventure. We even had a dinosaur race last night!

We have gotten some dice, a player’s handbook, and even some miniature figurines to represent us in the game. I am also really enjoying learning how to create characters and cast spells. The trickiest part for me is remembering what to add to each of the different dice rolls. But the group we play with is very patient so it’s okay.

I am looking forward to continuing to play with this group in the future and seeing what adventures we encounter. I have also started watching a couple of ongoing games on YouTube and Twitch, which is a lot of fun and also helps me learn the rules. We still enjoy playing board and card games as a family and with friends, but the extra strategy and social interaction required in D&D adds a whole new level to the experience of game playing!