Vertical Drop Heroes HD (2 hours):

I continued to be addicted to this little rogue-like. I’m getting pretty close to level 10 and the hinted reveal.

https://youtu.be/chJaJcP8J68?list=PLEJrELYLxNgXBv5HxeZNUxg5AWWM9QGJb

Civilization III (2 hours):

It came a bit later than I wanted it to, but I started playing Civ III in an attempt to play Civs III-VI between the end of September and the end of October when Civ VI comes out. (Unless things went horribly awry, it should be out by the time this post is published)

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.

I like to imagine that she was going full blast into this tunnel and skidded to a stop to see what was behind her.

I just noticed there’s a watermelon on the ground next to Scarlett. That isn’t some kind of asian ritual, shame on you if you thought that. Anyway, Scarlett had her first day of school a while ago. I guess it can be an emotional time for some parents - that’s what I’ve heard on the grapevine. For me the only emotion was excitement! I was curious to see how she’d do in school and what she’d think of it. She’d never been in daycare, but we did do a couple one-week classes this summer and she seemed to enjoy those. Turns out that school appealed to some of her nature - wanting to know things and wanting to be around other kids. She’s excited about school every day and sad on the weekends when she doesn’t have school. Couldn’t ask for a better start to her educational career.

Nothing more to add.

It’s a recurring theme that we forgot that our kids are people, just tiny people who perhaps haven’t finished developing all of their mental and emotional abilities yet. You expect them to eat the same thing every day and like the same TV shows and songs. But we aren’t like that, why should they be? That’s often made pretty evident to me with Scarlett and photos. Sometimes she’s dying to be in photos and ends up photo bombing everyone. Other times it doesn’t matter how much it means to me to have a photograph of a particular event or moment in her life. She does NOT want to be photographed and nothing can make her participate.

Stella loves anything she can climb on. Scarlett hasn’t developed a love for climbing trees, but Stella might. Put anything in front of her that’s a bit off the ground and she’ll try to get on top of it. Not sure if she’s trying to reach what the adults and her big sister can or if she’s just climbing it for the same reason people climb Everest: Because It’s There.