Sparkles

Now you have to wonder, who shines brighter? Thunderer or the sparkler she’s holding.

-FF

Sparkler Showdown

I think this one kind of explains itself with the title.

And then of course I need to offer a heads up that as I’m scheduling these I’m in my super busy time at work and home so that’s why scheduling new posts has dropped off so much.

-FF

Gamer Training

She wanted to make a void elf character on my account. I can’t remember what chores I was doing at the time at this point, but I went ahead and said sure, go ahead.

Newbie then joined her, so we had small siblings partying up out in the world. I believe Superman and maybe Little Miss were also playing, but having these two young future gamers sitting side-by-side was the important shot for me.

-FF

Just… One… More… Turn… (Happy Birthday Civ!)

Welp, thanks for making me feel old…I started playing Civ from Civ II with a demo.

Sometimes seeing how fast I could “beat” the demo (by discovering gunpowder) and sometimes seeing how long I could avoid beating it (by avoiding gunpowder at all costs). Alpha Centauri, a spin-off game, saw a full play-through the night TJ was born because Redflare was in the hospital in a shared room so I couldn’t stay over and be with them.

Too excited to sleep, I spent the whole night from turn 1 to victory playing that game, waiting until visiting hours were available so I could go see them again. Through the years, Civilization games are my default go-to when I’m pinned down holding a sleeping baby. From TJ and Little Miss to Fireball and Potato.

I believe I held Superman while playing Civ IV, for example with Newbie likely sleeping with Civ V and Thunderer while playing “Beyond Earth” (another spin-off).

Hard to believe the game now celebrates its 30th anniversary.

So off we go now, for just… one… more… turn…

-FF

Fourth Sparklers!

I thought this time around I should just combine all of the videos into one, so please excuse the jarring transitions, but with it being dark and the clips short, I didn’t really want to edit in transitions and rob the combo video of their joy.

-FF

Release the Poppers!

While we waited for it to get darker, naturally that’s the perfect time to break out the snap poppers.

-FF

Water Sisiters

Clearly they weren’t doing any hefty swimming if Little Miss was comfortable keeping her glasses on while romping in the lake, but reglardless they were all having a blast out there.

-FF

King of the Shoulders

Challenges were made.

The boys won and the birthday boy was quite triumphant.

-FF

Conga Swimmers

As is traditional at this point Superman likes to go swimming on or around his birthday.

This year we were lucky enough to head to a small lake nearby that nobody else was using.

It let everybody swim in peace.

We were the only ones partaking of it.

-FF

Desk Sleeper

I can’t remember exactly what we were doing back in mid June that inspired Thunderer to pass out at RedFlare’s desk, but there she is, snoozing away cutely.

-FF