Getting Ready to Game

Tonight is gaming night - Wed. night for the summer to work around Kid activities.

I'll be continuing the Star Wars "Dawn of Defiance" campaign. So far I have really liked the way the adventures are plotted out. Takes a lot of the responsibility off my hands, and the way they setup the combat encounters is very nice. Only thing I don't like is that there is a little bit to much "railroading" of the players. I'm going to try and fix that with the next module by using some of the ideas from the wizards boards about setting up the adventure.

The other getting ready to game piece is thinking about Dominic and Rowan getting ready to game. They were very interested in the Pokeman and other cartoons (and commercials) on the cartoon network, so I'm wondering about getting them started with that or with miniatures. Might be to early, but would be fun to try.

*******************************************************

Story idea:

Privateers capture people off vessels they take to replace crew lost in the battle. Using a combination of memory wipe and skill insertion they place keep them. What if the skills are set fine, but the memory wipe doesn't work?

Still Catching Up

Enjoying a weekend in Bloomington - hotel, waterpark, MOA - all the things a family can do in one short weekend.

Dominic is doing pretty well - only really melting down when he couldn't immediately get on a ride. He even went on a couple of "roller-coaster" style rides. After some initial trepidation he was even holing his arms up and yelling - so cool to see.

Rowan was a trooper, and kept up without any complaint, even when Dominic was misbehaving. He was stellar at the restaurant, and very good before that at IKEA.


For me I'm having a good time, trying not to worry too much about what I look like in a bathing suit and relax.

Break Number 2

So I'm finding that travel makes it hard to keep up with your blog entries.

I spent the last couple weeks traveling to both Omaha NE, and Nashville TN. I at least got to see a minor league ball game in Nashville. The play was just OK, and the stadium was truly bad, but the beer was good, and I got to sit behind some scouts. They were making notes on players, and even had their own radar guns. I wonder how they got them through security at the airport?

Nice to be back home.

We are spending the weekend at a hotel in Bloomington in honor of our 10th anniversary - yeah us. The boys are really enjoying the waterpark (I guess I am too), and they have their own bunk beds in the room.

Dominic has been doing really well at pre-school. He is being a little more social, and has not had a bad day in awhile.

Travel

I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Omaha NE giving a training class. It went fine, but it was the first time I'd spent away from Dominic since he was diagnosed with autism. I think he did OK. It wasn't anything I did, I think the credit goes to Ginger from the district ECE. It has been a good few weeks (except for a few days where he wouldn't stop playing to go potty) for Dominic, he is even trying to interact a little better. I'm more worried about Rowan that he doesn't start acting out because he isn't getting enough attention.

My only concern for Dominic is that he hasn't moved up to the next class in pre-school. I'm a little concerned that he will get bored with the activities and start acting out out of boredom.

I'm off again next week to Nashville, just fow a couple days, and then we are taking our "fake" vacation to the MOA. That should be great fun.

Mothers Day Weekend

So this was Mothers Day weekend, which meant a lot of time with the boys. Saturday, Rowan was invited to a birthday party, so I took Dominic shopping for presents and cards. We went to Williams Sonoma to get some wine glasses for Jenny, and he was great. He charmed the sales ladies, and was very good in the store, not touching anything (and there was a lot to touch).

After that, we went to Borders to get Mom's day cards, and some coins for the fountain.

Lastly, it was off to "Space aliens", a Chuckee Cheese knock off with games, and pretty good food. Dominic likes to ride the spaceship, and Daddy likes to win tickets.

Anyway, Dominic was very good all day until late that night when he was very tired, and hadn't had a nap. It rained buckets all afternoon and evening, so the boys were cooped up, and going stir crazy.

Sunday was almost as good - we flew kites in the morning, worked in the garden, watched Star Wars while Mom went t Archivers, and then to PF Changs for dinner (Great Wall of Chocolate).

Dominic was squirely, but OK. Rowan was also a little squirely, but OK. Note to self - no chopsticks for little boys.

I think Jenny had a good weekend, she got to do some of the things she loves, and didn't have a lot of pressure otherwise.

The older Dominic gets, the more I can see his autism at work. I guess it might be the differences between him and Rowan, but also the way he can retreat into himself and his own imaginings.

I think he has come a long way since last fall, but I can see that we will be working with him - forever. Well, we are still getting help and diagnosis so we will see how this goes. He has another round of diagnosis the first week of June with the medical group from Park Nicolett. Here is where we can get the actual medical diagnosis for his condition, and hopefully some different treatment options.

I'm off travelling this week - Monday through Wed. I hope the boys do fine.

Free Comics and Iron Man

First off - Iron Man was very cool. Good acting, awesome sfx, and a pretty good story. It should make silos full of cash for Marvel.

Free comic book day was cool also - got some good comics, and Rowan seems very interested in them. This along with his new love of drawing has me thinking (better stop that).

Sunday was a day with the boys. Jenny had a choir thing about 2 hours away, so she left early, and wasn't back until late afternoon. The boys and I cleaned house, watched movies, played on the computer, went to the gym and the pool, had lunch outside at McDonalds, and tried to relax and take naps (no love there). Not a bad day. We ended it by dropping the car off for tires (ouch), and then going shopping at Target. Got baseball mitts for the boys, and so had to go out in the yard and play for 30 minutes after we got home.

I got to grill both nights, so that was good - burgers and chicken.

Dominic had a good weekend. He really loves his baseball mitt, and is listening better to directions when he throws. I think it is good that Rowan loves it, because he can copy him. Still too much giggling while he plays, and he still gets off in his own universe pretty easily.

A Pretty Good Week

Dominic has been having a pretty good week. I picked up the boys Thursday afternoon because Jenny had conferences at school, and his teacher said he had a really good day. They went on a field trip to PetCo, and he talked about the animals that he saw - birdies mostly. We watched the "Bee Movie" (not good), and even though Dominic wasn't very interested, he wasn't destructive either.

I hope they move him up to the next class soon, I think he needs to practice interacting with older kids more. I don't think the peer pressure wil have any affect on him, I just want him to see older kids interacting to get an idea of how he should interact. This is probably something to ask Ginger about. I certainly don't want him to get frustrated and start acting out again.

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book day, so I'm going to take him to The Source. Should be interesting with all the people there. After that its off to see Iron Man with some of the Geeks - cant wait.