6 February 2010

The big news!!!

thru-the-portal has been launched, and after only one week it has been downloaded all over the world! We are quite excited about this, and Neil worked very hard to put together the magazine. I was very impressed with the quality and content, and I am sure the readers are as well. We already have some great content lined up for the next quarterly, so it will be fun to watch it take off as more people become aware of it.




Happy Belated New Year!

Sorry to say, this blog is going to take a bit of a hit in regards to timely posts. Between work, the magazine (which you should definately check out at www.thru-the-portal.com, if you haven't already) and the beginning of my law studies, well, there just isn't a whole lot of time left to keep up with posting.

The good news is that we have still managed to get out and have fun times together. :)

Several weeks ago we went bowling with one of Michael's classmates and his mother, who is also from America. It was Michaels first time bowling, and he did wonderfully, beating us all, though his friend came in close second.











We have been snowed in for part of January. Basically as soon as I got my permanant offer in the office, it became nearly impossible to actually get to work with all the snow we had. The trains are pretty horrendous, as there is not an accurate website or phone line to call that will tell you what the trains are REALLY doing. So if you manage to make it into the station (ha ha, they don't plow the roads, or even salt the secondary roads in our area)...then you are likely to find there are no trains even running through the station. Still, it doesn't snow here that often, so one can't complain too much about the lack of infastructure in place...it's just that it has snowed this year more than it has in the previous 100....

We did get out though, and took a walk to the pub for some lunch, posing with snowmen along the way. We were lucky to find these guys before they were beheaded by the local gang of decapitating snowman thugs. :)



Michael has been taking his vitamins, and he is getting big muscles...don't you think?




Michael designed this Bionicle. He is quite proud of it, and rightfully so. We need to send it into the Lego club website for him.









We had a wonderful Christmas. I got this fabulous game, Pandemic. Each player takes the role of a member of the Centers for Disease Control and...well..if you really want to know more about it then you can read the review in thru-the-portal! :)



It is a testament to what a great job I have that my boss got me the game Logo! How fabulous is it that she picked up on my hobby, and actually went through the trouble to get something so nice when I had only been working there for two months? I was thrilled.


From our BoardGameGeek secret santa, we got Dominion and a Ticket to Ride expansion. We really enjoy Dominion, and it has become one of the favorites around our house.



My mother, ever the EXCELLENT present buyer, managed to pick up this Bobbi Brown Lip Pallette, which was a limited edition Nordstoms item, really not easy to find, and has an amazing 7 colors (all usably attractive). I don't like the lipstick in the UK, and Bobbi Brown is my favorite line of makeup. Thanks mom!



Over Christmas break we decided that Mike's legos needed to be custom painted, as one of his gifts were custom face decals for the Lego batman line. He wanted the characters to have the correct colored bodies for the faces (understandably). We also had some figures from a few of our games that needed some painting. We killed a few afternoons playing around with paint.



We had Lobster and tomato soup for our Christmas dinner, though we technically had it on boxing day. It was really delicious .




Here are the Lego guy's customized. I know it would make more sense to have them above the lobster, but Blogger doesn't feel like allowing me to move pictures today, so I am just going to go along with this so that I actually publish the post rather than put it off yet ANOTHER month or so. I hope you understand!



Neil and Michael got bath robes from Santa, and they look smashing in them. I got one a few weeks later because I was pouting and jealous :)



Michael got power miners from grandma and grandpa, and he was very excited to get them. He put all of his lego sets together within 24 hours of receiving them.




Finally,

Happy Birthday Neil! He is 35 now!

We treated him to dinner, a night out to see Wicked (again)..though it was Mike's first show, and Neil was very pleased to be with Michael for it. We had a chocolaty chocolate cake and he got BattleLore for his present, along with a few extra cards for Monty Python Fluxx.

Til next time.