It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...


Sara has mastered three statements and two noises:

'All done!' which she tells us every time that we start to change her diaper or anything that she doesn't want us to do.

'I love you' which she tells to anything that she is paying attention to. I think that perhaps it is a greeting in her mind.

'Egg', which she said once when we were talking about eggs, and she now will randomly exclaim for no apparent reason. We reacted in a really excited manner when she first said it, so that is perhaps why she says it still.

'Ba Ba Ba'  she says whenever she wants food (that originated from the word bland, but it has grown to include all foods now.)

Finally, she ceaselessly blows raspberries, but we can't figure what (if anything) is meant by that.

The girls have been sick again, and so this last week was a bit rough.

We did, however, open our first long term goat cheese, and it is great. Creamy with a fairly strong flavor. It cuts easily and makes an excellent snacking cheese. It has small eyes that  probably were mechanically made (perhaps the curd was not pressed as firmly as it could have been). It is about as strong as a sharp cheddar, and it melts excellently.

It is a derby, and weighed in at just under 4 lbs. so far we have made a three cheese pasta (derby, gouda, and parmesan), and snacked on it. Alison enjoys apples and cheese (something that I had never considered.)

Sara is crawling pretty strongly now. She still falls over at times, but she is much more capable of getting to where she needs to be.

On Saturday we were planning on going to see the Phantom of the Opera at BYU, but we couldn't get tickets, so we ended up playing Bang and Shadows over Camelot with Sheila and Scott.

They just got the 'Gold Rush' expansion for bang (which was pretty fun, although I do have one beef with it). There is a guy in the expansion who, at the end of his turn is %50 likely to get a second turn. Since it was being played along the guy that is %50 likely to draw a third card, it seemed a bit powerful. If he exists in the game, perhaps he should have three life instead of four.

We forgot a rule in Shadows, so we won when we should have lost. It is a fun game. I suppose that I am just a sucker for punishment.

 I finally gave up waiting for SuperiorPod to ship my cards (the ones I ordered in November.) I have re-ordered them from a different printer, and they have already been shipped. They are coming from China, so they will probably arrive next week some time. During that time I will be fighting SuperiorPod in the courts of Paypal for my money.


I am gearing up for SaltCon (a boardgaming conference that is in Salt Lake in february). I look forward to showing off my game to various publishers and playing it with random people. I already have two publishers that have said that they would like to see it played. If anyone who has played Polynesia wants to come to SaltCon (to play it with me and perhaps attract some other publishers) talk to me about it. I might even pay for half of your ticket if you hang around a table for a while and play Polynesia.

Alison and I are also trying to figure out where to go while we are in Japan. We know that we are spending a week in Kyoto, and a day (at least) in Tokyo, but we don't know where we will be spending the other days that we are there.