Hello to everyone on this long forgotten blog.Here is this year’s Christmas card to you all to enjoy.

Yes this blog is very sadly neglected. I think it should be a new year’s resolution to get this thing running again.

Wow it is crazy but as of yesterday we have been married for 10 years. It has been a crazy 10 years with ups and downs and houses and kids and many trips to Disneyland. Looking forward to another decade together.

Here is my gift to Naomi which I commissioned a co-worker to do for me. You can see her other work here.

It is finally launched!! The new project I have been working on for the last number of months and overtime is finally launched.

This now being the largest project I have lead out has been a very interesting journey. The goal was to make the puffle more interactive and compelling. It has been very eye opening and stressful (I have been dreaming puffles for weeks now) but in the end if the players love it then it is worth it. There is an insanely long list of people to thank on this one as it was a large team effort, I truly thank you all for the very hard work and care that you put into this project. Dave I thank you most as you were very instrumental in bringing this one across the line.

Below is a few screen grabs of the various pieces. Now onto the next project, no rest of the weary.

It is close to a year that I last abandoned the project and now it is time to get back on it. Having been fret with hardware issues I lost drive on the project especially when the weather started turning for the good and yard work was calling.

This weekend I got back at it and decided to tackle the cabinet itself as this might help in deciding on some of my hardware replacement choices and a few last hardware pieces. I did some research on some cabinets and found some of the aspects I like about some of the best ones and wanted to mix in a few details of the classic tabletop Coleco games I played so much as a kid.

After spending a few hours playing around with a couple of drawings I cut out all the pieces and built this cardboard prototype. I am really happy with the result but might increase the height about an inch to allow for some more room for the buttons and joystick.

Next is playing with the button/joystick configuration.

Looks like we got extremely lucky and the past few days we have gotten to spend time with our sponsor child from Watoto. It is amazing that this is the second time that we have been able to do this last year it was Felix and this year Ivan. Ivan, Marvin and their “Uncle” David stayed with us Sunday and Monday before they had to leave to continue their Choir tour in Calgary. The boys all had a great time together playing, goofing off and dancing. It was so awesome that Tristan and Rhys got to meet their “brothers” from Africa.

If you are interested in sponsoring ones of these kids i highly recommend Watoto. It is a great organization with great success and a very good way of caring for these kids in a way that sets them on a path to be the future leaders of Africa and hopefully our world.

Happy New Year everyone!! Gone is 2010 and now a new start with 2011. First a report on the last few weeks of snow, family, great food, friends and even a birthday.

The boys have been having great fun in the snow shoveling, sleding and building snowmen. Although they never last long as they get cold really easily and find it hard to keep their gloves on. They have discovered the best thing of going outside in the cold… coming inside for the hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Continue reading "Snow, Christmas and New Year’s"…

Here we are almost at Christmas with one day left to go and most importantly only one day of work left for 2010. Yay!!

Last year I was lazy and didn’t create a Christmas card but with lots of encouragement at work I manage to pull this one out. Took me way longer than I had anticipated as I am really really rusty. Guess i should start drawing more.  For this year used inspiration from fifties illustration although I am not sure it came out completely. Anyways without further ado here it is, Merry Christmas.

It is finally time I get around to posting about the summer and into fall long project that I have been working on. Since we have moved into this house we have done lots of things to the yard but the one thing that has always bugged me the most has been this one corner in the backyard that I can see from the kitchen window. This corner has basically been a weed haven and was just slightly to steep and dry for grass. I have always wanted to have a waterfall and pond but with the boys ponds are just not the way to go. However, a pondless waterfall or disappearing waterfall started to intrigue me. So one Saturday afternoon in June I just up and started digging away.

Continue reading "Waterfall"…

October seemed to wiz by and now it is all over and done with, possibly has it was full of birthdays, thanksgiving, pumpkins, last minute yard work and Halloween. All lots of fun but kept us busy just the same. 

First I have to say that Rhys the 2 year old that he is, just likes to have as little clothing on as possible. Being that it was only 15 degrees out just didn't seem to phase him and he was a happy as can be.

Just like past years we had to visit the pumpkin patch to get pumpkins for pie, this year with Lyric and Aria as well. Rhys just loved the pig and took forever in finding a "Rhysy" sized pumpkin (trust me this took a long time from and nice size pumpkin down to what he is carrying in the picture. All in all it was a fun day that left the boys coming home with corn kernels in their shoes and hay in their hair from the hay maze.

Finally ending the month is of course Halloween. Now being where we work it does get a little crazy with the costumes and you don't come to work not dressed up. This year trying hard to not be out done I went as the Mad Hatter and Naomi as Alice, however I had to compete with Gumby, a giant banana, jellyfish, killer robots and Master Chief himself. The funniest thing was us all walking across the new pedestrian bridge over the highway next to the office which happen to be the grand opening that day (thinking it will be a yearly event now). The most fun being taking the boys trick or treating and boy did they ever get into it with a huge haul of candy. It took the boys I think close to an hour to sort their candy and the best being scaring daddy with the chocolate eye balls.

Now onto November…