Tag Archives: Holiday

Family, Food, Photo-A-Day

Happy New Year’s Eve 2021

Celebrating New Years Eve
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01096

We spent the last day of 2021 playing games, eating and enjoying each other’s company. In between playing on Andy’s new Oculus Quest VR we played some additional games together. We started out playing some Fortnite together. I picked up the Axolotl skin for Andy so he could play as that one. He even wore his Halloween costume to play.

axolotl Fortnite

after that we broke out the Marvel Battle Stones game from Funko. This game uses a bunch of mini characters as play pieces and there are cards that are the battles. Rolling dice and using strategy are the best ways to play this game. We have a bunch of the add-ons and extras, too. I found some of the series two packs at Big Lots and so I picked them up before Christmas. We opened up a bunch of new characters.

Marvel Battle Stones

For New Year’s Eve we usually do a big meal of appetizers and things to pick on. This usually means checking through the freezer in the basement for whatever we might have down there. We were pretty much out of stock but there was a rack of ribs that had been in there for a while. I thawed them out and covered them with a dry rub. I baked them in the oven for 2 hours and then some time on the grill. They came out great but I have to learn that too many rubs on one item is too much. They were not as good as I would have liked and so we only had a few of them. But we did have other things throughout the night and I got the chance to try out some hot sauce that my brother-in-law got me.

ribs

For a whole family game we played Minecraft Uno and also a round of Rummikub. This game can be both fun and frustrating. It was frustrating for Andy this time around. But he stuck through and did okay in the end.

rummikub

I was a bit tired tonight and have to go back to work tomorrow so I turned in at 11pm after we watched the ball drop in Puerto Rico. The kids and Allison made it through to midnight. Andy was asleep 4 minutes after midnight, too. He played some games with his friends who were also awake for the New Year. We have begun to allow him to play Fortnite with his friends for a half hour at a time. He is having a nice time with them and they are some good kids. He tells them that his dad makes Fortnite videos and some are even watching my channel. It was a nice family day and we look forward to the year ahead.

Family, Photo-A-Day

Cape Christmas

kids christmas
Photo-A-Day 2.0 #01091

We arrived on Cape Cod yesterday afternoon and had a really nice day. Today we were joined by my sister, Shelby and her family. The kids were so excited to see their cousins and play with them. Everyone hung out on the sunporch and we opened gifts in a much less frenzied fashion then past years. I actually got to see pretty much all the gifts that the kids opened. I was excited to see what Dylan thought of his gift. He really liked a remote control car that I had at the Cape last summer but it broke so we got him one of his own. We had fun driving it around the street and yards after we opened gifts.

Family Photo

My Uncle Jim came to the house later on and he took the photo above of the whole family. We haven’t had one of those in a while. It was nice to capture one of everyone together in the same place.

Lights at parents house

Later on we had pizza for dinner and then watched the movie 8-bit Christmas. I think the kids liked it. My parents did. I also captured the above photo of my Dad’s lights. He’s been setting up a more elaborate light display every year and it looks great. It was a very nice day with everyone.