This year I wanted to take the twins’ portraits outside. I’d been wanting to do it at the park for a few years now, but this year the timing actually worked out well. Unlike in years past, Sam wasn’t as keen on having his photo taken so he went full anime on this one:
Even throwing Stella into the mix didn’t get him peeking:
About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about how my kids got themselves (and, by extension, me) into Dungeons and Dragons. I wanted to reflect on how far I’ve come since then and where I might go in the near future. Starting off with a quick recap of the linked blog post, my brother David had introduced the kids to D&D via Muk, a module for introducing your kids to D&D. Unfortunately, it was written for an experience adult D&D player or DM to DM for the kids, so we had a few fails with my first time as the DM. Then we moved on to DnD Adventure Club. That was, and continues to be, a huge hit with the kids.
Last weekend I decided to try the Humblewood D&D campaign setting with the kids. For the past year (give or take) we’ve had a lot of fun playing DnD Adventure Club campaigns. Our one major foray in to regular D&D, Dragons of Stormreck Isle, was a failure. I think there were a few reasons for that. First of all, I was fairly new to DMing and so probably not doing as good of a job as I am a year-ish later. Second, since it was a campaign meant to introduce people to both playing and DMing, it came with pre-made characters. I think that meant the kids had less of an attachment to the characters. Also, the session went very slowly as I had to go back and forth through the player handbook, monster manual, and campaign sheet to look up spells, monsters, etc.
This weekend we finished The Wild Trilogy from DnD Adventure Club. The first challenge involved sneaking around an Owlbear. The kids asked about their options and I noted that in addition to sneaking, they could try and distract it. Sam’s dwarf, Grumpy McGrumbles, has a cooking hobby, so he took hits pots and pans and made a bunch of noise so that the Owlbear would follow him around the camp.
After that there was a mini “dungeon” crawl in the basement beneath a wizard’s tower. The girls finally started to get the hang of investigating chambers rather than blindly setting off traps.
Scarlett was inspired by my previous post and made an animatic-style drawing of some of her favorite moments from the campaign.
The top panel is the party questioning the guards. (The ninja-looking character is Sasha, the character that Scarlett plays)
The next panel is Grumpy using intimidation to question a gnoll. The middle panel is the throwing of gnolls I referenced in my previous post. The last panel on that row depicts the characters examining someone who was shot mid-exposition.
I was DMing the first third of a DnD Adventure Club campaign for my kids today. My son likes to mostly play as Grumpy Mcgrumbles, a dwarven fighter. The kids were attacked by a group of Gnolls. Normally, most of the time, the kids play pretty straightforwardly although they are starting to get more creative. My son decided that since he’s a strong dwarf, he wanted to pick up the Gnolls and throw them into the river or into each other. I wanted to encourage the creativity, so I had him do an athletics check. Between his +7 and a series of lucky rolls, he ends up almost always successfully tossing the Gnolls and the kids and I erupted into fits of laughter as the battle became more and more chaotic. It was even funnier when he finally had a bad roll and so he just picked up the Gnoll and dropped him at his feet.
When I went to visit my grandfather in September, he brought out some Havana Club Rum that someone had brought from Cuba.
As best as I can understand things, after the communists took over and nationalized Havana Club, the original creator-owner sold the recipe to the Bacardi family, who’d fled to Puerto Rico.
I’m not a huge drinker, but I can appreciate a good spirit. I did not enjoy drinking this.
This year Scarlett did hip hop as her dance class and the instructor selected a Pink Ladies meets Hip Hop sort of outfit for the kids. Like last year I did a portrait session with Scarlett in her costume. Unlike last year, it actually came out nice this year. (Last year I rushed it and the lighting was off)
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
Scarlett's Pre-Recital Portraits
After seeing another dad do it last year, I decided to rent a lens this year so I could have much better low light performance. I rented the 70-200 II IS L lens. On the plus side, I was very happy with how close I was able to zoom to Scarlett without having to push the ISO past the limits of my camear. On the minus side, I just don’t have that much experience with dance photography and this year Scarlett’s class only had one dance. So although the lens was a reasonable $100 to rent, I am not sure if I’m going to do it again next year (assuming Scarlett does dance class again) since I only got 3 photos worth sharing.
Back in November we took the twins on their first trip to Disney. This time around Scarlett wasn’t as interested in the parades as she was last time, but the twins were REALLY into them. Surprisingly, both twins ended up warming up to the characters. Sam’s reluctance with Mickey on the first day made me think he was going to try and avoid them the entire trip. But as you can see in the video, he eventually got into interacting with the characters.
This year Scarlett concluded a season of ballet and tap with a recital. It was pretty neat to see it all come together after having seen it in bits throughout the season. Here are some of the photos I took. I think next year I’ll do the same thing the guy behind me did and rent some f2.8 glass so I can freeze the action a bit more and get less motion blur.
We’ll see what happens spring 2017, but I was surprised they were a little more patient than Scarlett and so didn’t fall on account of running on the steep (for their little legs) incline.
When I was dating Danielle, during one of the trips to her house I asked to see old family photos. That was a big tradition in our house as I got the bug for documenting things with photography from my mother. Each of my brothers and I have about two dozen photo albums full of photos of us from back when you had to pay for film and pay for development. They had but a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the photos my mom did, but one photo that cracked me up was a photo my future father-in-law had taken of Dina (future sister-in-law) and one of Danielle’s cousins punished, crying against the wall. It was a funny image, but baffling that it’d be something worth capturing, especially in the film days. And I saw him do it with the new generation of kids as Danielle’s cousins started having kids.
There’s a story about my childhood my mom is fond of telling. My dad asks Daniel (the brother born after me) to do something. To my father’s consternation, he refuses because it would make me mad. It’s funny to see a similar situation going on with the twins and Scarlett. Part of it is familiarity - Scarlett is home with them every day; but the kids will smile or laugh more easily with her than with me. This video is an example of that which I found amusing. We’ll see if I find it amusing if I find myself in a situation similar to my father.
Scarlett had been obsessed with Mickey and the Beanstalk so I HAD to snap the photo that heads up this post. But there were also some interesting things going on at PDX as I made my way home:
The day after the wedding we headed out to Mount Hood. While I learned how to ski at the Sugar Mountains in North Carolina, I did most of my skiing at Mount Hood when we lived there. When we first moved up we went to Mt Hood in August and there was some snow there. This was a much hotter year, so you had to go to the top of The Magic Mile to get some snow. I actually heard some people complaining about the quality of the snow….in July…..
This year happened to contain one of the driest summers the Pacific Northwest had seen. There were lots of fire raging, some intentionally set and some caused by nature. On the way to the Bachelor Party caving trip, I saw this immense plume of smoke from a fire.
I’d been to lots of caverns before, so that’s what I expected from this bachelor party trip. I first suspected I was wrong when I couldn’t find a sign for the place. My suspicions grew when Dave arrived (along with other attendees) and we just started walking into the woods. As we arrived at the entrance Dave told us that one can be sure he’s arriving at the entrance to a cave by spotting mosquitoes. Turns out we were going into a lava tube. I thought that meant we’d be walking in a cave that was fine as glass. Instead it was as if someone had chosen a cave to dump a bunch of rocks. We did see some baby stalagtites, though.
A while ago I went to the Pacific Northwest for Dave’s wedding. I finally am getting caught up with my photos from back then. It was a fun trip because we’d lived in Oregon for a few years when I was a kid so I was able to revisit some fun areas.
First up was Multnomah Falls. It is the second tallest falls in the US and it’s a really neat hike. Because of timing and Scarlett being 3 (and unlikely to be able to hike back and forth) we only went up to the lower level. But it was still neat to be reminded of the great outdoors areas in Oregon.
Scarlett had a good time picking apples, so Danielle thought it’d be neat to take Scarlett strawberry picking. I was pretty surprised at how many people were there.
When we arrived, they gave us a box to fill with strawberries. Scarlett was quite excited about carrying the box over to the fields.
Unsurprisingly, it was mostly Danielle and I - with Scarlett putting in one or two strawberries at a time.
This post is meant to be a followup to last year’s post, Visiting Walt Disney World with a 2 Year Old. I’ll be referring to, and updating, that post with the elements that were different this time around. For one, I said she wouldn’t remember the first trip. While that’s certainly true in the long run, three year old Scarlett definitely remembered the previous trip. She asked for rides she’d been on last time and she remembered going on the monorail.
For a while during Scarlett’s second year Danielle and I went back and forth on whether we should take Scarlett to Disney just before her second birthday or whether we should wait until she was older. On the one hand - she’s not going to actually remember this trip. Or rather, any memories she has are sure to be false memories triggered by the photos and videos we took. On the other hand - whether or not she remembers it, it’s still forming her base memories; memories that anchor most of the subconscious feelings we feel about our lives.
We were raised with the constant reminder that we needed to care for our parents when they got old. They spent countless hours and money to raise us - it’s the least we could do. We always said, “Yes” or “Of Course”. It’s funny, I always thought I appreciated what my parents had done for us. For most of my childhood my parents had very little. It wasn’t until around the time I was in high school that they were solidly into the middle class. Yet they made sure we did sports (which are very expensive) and had a computer and nice clothing. And I truly appreciated all of that; I appreciated it more and more each year as I matured and and realized what these things cost. But until I became a father I didn’t truly understand the time and emotional investments that kids are. I now truly realize how much they gave me. The only situation I could see for having to have my parents not live with me when they get uber-old would be if they required some kind of medical equipment that couldn’t be installed in my home or care that a live-in nurse couldn’t take care of. (Well, other than if they decided to live with one of their other six kids rather than me - for whatever reason) But, you know, that’s supposed to be way out in the future.
Memorial Day was pretty awesome this year. All three original Mesa Brothers were reunited for the first time since Christmas. It was my third major holiday celebration since Scarlett was born (in 2012 we only celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas), but it was the first one I hosted. Even with Danielle’s family only 3 hours away we rarely have an opportunity to have a BBQ out in the yard. I find this lack of BBQs irksome as my childhood involved lots of house parties since our entire extended family lived within 30 minutes of each other. What is the point of having a yard and home in suburbia otherwise? So I took the rare chance to take out the speakers I bought back in High School for my short DJ career and set my netbook to play from Google Music. I created a playlist of songs with “summer” in the title since Memorial Day is the cultural start of the summer in the USA.
[caption id="" align=“alignleft” width=“368” caption=“My grandfather smoking a cigar - the way I will remember him for all of my life”] [/caption]
It really sucks that I’m so far from my family. My sole living grandfather, pictured here, is turning 70 this year. Although I’ve always been closer to my mom’s family - I really, really love my grandfather. His humor, which was passed on to my father and which I hope to pass on to my son(s), has always cracked me up. In different circumstances I think he would have liked all the same comedies I do.
I think that the single largest source of mirth at the Thanksgiving dinner was Dan’s xkcd tshirt. Dan and I were the only ones who knew what this meant. Dave was the only other person capable of grasping it. Everyone else kept asking Dan to explain the shirt over and over. No matter how many ways he tried to do it, the response was always “I don’t get it”. Later on the response was a sarcastic “OK”. Later on in the evening/night everyone was sudo ordering people to do things even though they had no idea what that meant. The person who was ordered to do something would invariably answer “OK!” IT was hilarious and maddening at the same time.
When my brothers and I were young, influence pretty much flowed in one direction - from me to my brothers. Whatever music, movies, or video games I was into they also wanted to experience. It’s not that they didn’t also have their own likes and dislikes. They did like some stuff I didn’t and disliked some of my choices. Overall, however, I probably played a larger role in influencing my brothers than even my parents.
So you may be wondering what’s up with the lack of posts. It’s not that I don’t have things I want to write about. I actually have a ton to write about, but I’ve been (nearly obsessively) working on my family tree using the FOSS Linux program GRAMPS. There’s a link for the page over on the right panel of my blog. The software is AMAZING! I really think they have done an great job. If you want to keep track of your family memories, this is the program to use! I showed my family members what the output can look like and they are impressed. Not only that, but it has also energized them to help me get more information and media! Go check them out and see how awesome they are!
Ashley has posted an apology on her blog. I accept that apology on behalf of myself. I don’t know how others who were affected feel. Perhaps next time, do not post hurtful things unless you truly mean it. You really hurt all of us, especially by talking about our mother. (Especially when they are vicious lies)
The inflammatory post which spurned us to write what we did has been removed. For the sake of understanding what got us into such a tizzy, I’ll post a copy of it.
Here it is:
I’m definitely in the anger stage of grief, but bear with me
I have always tried to believe that everybody has good in them. I’m not perfect-I react to the things people do that I don’t like, but in the end I usually try to understand that people are the way they are because it’s the best they know how to be. And so when Dan’s family treated me like shit and barely like a person, I tried to understand where they were coming from. I tried to see what I was doing wrong with myself. And yes, they fed me and took me places and paid for me, but they never ever stopped manipulating Dan to turn against me when I wasnt there. And if they were pissed, they didnt mind throwing a tantrum and not looking me or Dan in the eye. And his mom competed with me, and she denies it, but everything he did for me, she wanted him to do for her. And I tried to put up with it. And I hated it, but I pushed him to keep a good relationship with his family no matter how unfair they were acting. But ya know what? I’m stronger now, and I’m pissed at the way I was treated. I’m pissed that they raised Dan to only trust his mom and that being dishonest is no big deal. I’m pissed that Dan’s siblings don’t see that she did the same thing to his brother’s wife before I came around. When dan’s brother got married, all he and his wife worried about was making that awful woman happy, and ya know what happened? She complained the entire time anyway. Yeah, on their wedding day, where they should be worrying about themselves. And I had the stupidity to feel bad for them, and try to understand them. It was stupid because when the criticism turns to me, they buy into it. That’s why Dan’s mom is so good at what she does, because she gets you in her group to complain about other people and tells you how she manipulates them, but no one relaizes she does the same thing to them. Yeah, Eric, your family used to talk lots of crap about Danielle until I came around, and I know they did because I spent time with both Dan and Dave before I was ever in the dating picture, and David has a harder time hiding things, and you all probably know that, but yet I’ve heard her making comments about Dan and I. Maybe people are just glad to have the heat off them, but that’s bullshit, because I tried to not join in on the crap talking about Danielle. And the thing is, I think everything gets denied by everybody because it’s such a habit to judge other people that they’d have to realize a fundamental flaw in their everyday thinking and they just don’t realize it. So deny away, but you’d be seriously insulting my intelligence. And yes Dan’s mom does nice things for people, but you know how you can tell that even that part of her is selfish? Because she doesn’t do nice things without telling everybody and getting mad if she doesn’t get something back. She likes to raise kids because something inside of her needs people to need her to a level that is so absurd that some of her offspring never learned to form healthy relationships with other women. On Christmas Eve, that woman actually turned to me and said “Why do you make my son so miserable?” Who say’s that to people? That is not a nice thing to say, but I just kept my mouth shut-I was dumbstruck. And she would never apologize for anything like that. And that is the kind of person I dealt with for a year and 8 months. I know I make mistakes, I know I couldve been better in some areas, I know I didn’t always do the right thing, but at least I can recognize my own flaws. And I feel regret for the bad things I do.
By the way, how is my mom obsessive and controlling if she let us move to Maryland and go to school at Cornell? YOUR mother is the one that had you go to school just 45 minutes away.
And how is she selfish if she paid for your damn Disney ticket?
And my parents took out $70k in loans to let me have my dream of going to Cornell! They could have forced me to go to school locally where it was free. You are just weird.
When Ashley left comments on my AIM like “lies may be ok in your family, but mine,” and “Your family can be really hard on girlfriends,” Danielle asked me if I was goign to mount a response. I told her I would not. Although I disagreed with Ashley’s contentions, I told Danielle, “I feel that no good can come of starting a flame war. It would only bring more negativity to the universe.” Yes, although you dno’t hear too many Christians speaking like that, I feel that I feel that the beliefs expounded by the practitioners of transcendental meditation do not clash with what Jesus taught with respect to “turning the other cheek and giving a man your shirt if he asked for your jacket.” I do not like to yell or be proface with the peole who are always calling my house soliciting money even though they annoy me to no end. I do not believe that we should have attacked Iraq just because Saddam was a jerk. However, there comes a point in one’s life when an affront is so hostile that, like the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, one has to put his pacifistic, philosophic point of view aside and press teh button. That’s right, the glvoes are off and the napalm is on its way. What triggered this change of heart? This attack on my family. Like the Cubans of the 1800s or the pre-WW2 Japanese, I cannot tolerate an attack upon my family’s honor.
While talking to my mom last night she asked me to do her a favor. For today, her mother’s birthday, she asked me to write a message on a balloon and let it go into the air, metaphorically going to my grandmother in Heaven. I did it, taking pictures to document the act because that is a symbolic thing to me as a visual person and photographer. I was fine while I did it but when I came inside and looked at the weight which had kept the balloon down while in the supermarket, I was instantly depressed. I was having one of the most amazing days of my life, propped up by the fact that my blog was back and this was just like jumping into one of Ithaca’s gorges. I didn’t even feel like having dinner anymore. Eventually, I got it out of my system and I feel better. I am still a little down, but nowhere near as bad as before. Stay tuned for the next part, where I put up some pictures of the event.
I wanted to wish a happy birthday to the most special girl in my life (other than my mother) who is the best cook in the world - my fiancee - Danielle!
Happy Birthday!
It’s too bad we couldn’t be together on your birthday this year, but that will never be a problem again once we’re married.
If you are in a hospital, you will know you’re about to die when your entire family suddenly starts coming in with more and more frequency. My grandmother died today after nearly eight decades of life. I was really close to her and I loved her so much. Ever since I was a little kid we would see her nearly every weekend. On week days my mother would take her to the stores since she couldn’t drive. I remember being dragged along, but now I treasure those moments. That’s back when she could walk and dance and play without pain.
This week my grandmother will probably be diagnosed with lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes. This is one of the worse types of cancer for two reasons. First of all, it is attacking the very part of your body responsible for keeping the body healthy. So this cancer leaves the person extra debilitated as they not only have cancer, but lose the ability to fight off infections. Second, because the lymph nodes can’t be removed like bone or even lung can, there are no surgical procedures which can be performed. The patient can participate in chemotherapy or some of the newer drug therapies.
Just a photo to showcase Scarlett’s new haircut. But when I saw it a month later, I really liked how it looked.
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