Family
Heartfelt updates about family milestones and everyday moments. From taking Mazie to college and annual visits to the Renaissance Festival to Swedish‑pancake breakfasts and VR outings with the kids, this category celebrates togetherness.
- Italian Opera
- Love ❤️
We returned to Mess Hall Art Experiences to have some fun with paint! Tyler wanted to go as part of his birthday. We had a great time as always. Tyler got into the the messy part! I did an interpretation of the FC Bayern logo.
The Winter 2022 issue of Reading Things, our family newsletter on books and reading, is out now! 📚
In this issue: My Brigadista Year, We Are Not From Here, Minecraft: The Mountain, Caste, To Shake the Sleeping Self, and Four Thousand Weeks.
My Brigadista Year: This libro really struck home for me because of the overarching themes of family, love, teaching, and farming. Like, literally all of my favorite things. It is a grounding, heartwarming read. — Mazie
We Are Not From Here: It’s not a lighthearted read, but it is a devastatingly honest look at the journey many kids make trying to come to this country from Central America because of the impossibility of where they were born. — Tammy
Minecraft: The Mountain: Will Summer survive? Will Guy come back to the Nether to save Summer? Now come and read this adventure packed book and see what happens to them and their relationship. — Tyler
Caste: But perhaps there is also a fundamental framework, a super-structure, that was created with absolute intent and clarity, that is then justified and allowed to exist on the poison of racism. — Jamie
To Shake the Sleeping Self: I thought it was a great read; a travelogue of a 30 year old guy trying to find himself while on an epic bike journey that spanned two continents and a year and a half. — Tammy
Four Thousand Weeks: We have what we get. It disappears at the same linear rate for all of us. Four Thousand Weeks is filled with ways to contemplate that limited time and what we want to do with it. — Jamie
Blokus is another New Years Eve tradition. Tyler (Blue) won this year with just 4 points left. Tammy (Green) with 8, Jamie (Red) with 11, and Mazie (Yellow) at 21.
Today is Lucky’s 2nd birthday! She is officially no longer a puppy. Mazie and I took her on a nice, cold, snowy walk and she loved it. She got a lot of treats, and much extra attention today.
Today’s board game was Settlers of Catan! We messed up the rules more than a few times, and the game took a long time to wrap up, but still liked it. Tyler’s pick. Mazie won.
Tonight’s board game was Photosynthesis. Mazie’s pick, and she won with a good lead! 🌳
Angry Bunny Club Jigsaw Puzzle
We make a custom jigsaw puzzle each Christmas. This year I also took my collection of Angry Bunny Club NFT’s and created a custom puzzle from it. I created a collage of the various images and ordered both of the puzzles.
I love how it came out! The Bunny images are all 3,000 x 3,000 pixels so there was plenty of resolution to work with. I wasn’t sure how difficult the puzzle would be but it turned out relatively quick to solve. All four of us did it together and finished in about 90 minutes.
I decided to make this puzzle with no specific up or down. This was partially due to the design of the Bunnies, which are all clipped at the chest. By having them go all the way around I could more easily align them all on the outer edge of the puzzle, and then have some in the middle behind the bigger ones.
This puzzle features 18 Angry Bunny Club NFTs, all are ones I hold in my wallet right now. The bunnies included are, in ascending order by ID:
Bunny #338, Bunny #393, Bunny #501, Bunny #519, Bunny #1308, Bunny #1626, Bunny #1688, Bunny #2076, Bunny #2465, Bunny #3069, Bunny #3337, Bunny #3678, Bunny #3680, Bunny #4598, Bunny #4801, Bunny #4926, Bunny #5011, and Bunny #5128.
I’m pretty sure this is the world’s first Angry Bunny Club jigsaw puzzle. 🤩
Mazie picked Stargirl for us to watch tonight. It was a great story, well told, and touching. Great family movie. 🍿
Blokus tonight. Tammy and I tied at 15. Tyler at 18. Mazie at 19.
Tyler got started on his Christmas LEGO, building Old Trafford - Manchester United stadium! ⚽️ This is going to be amazing to see finished!
Mazie started her Christmas LEGO today too, the Roller Coaster! 🎢 She has already complete the Carousel 🎠 and Ferris Wheel 🎡 and this will complete that set. We may need to create a motorized display for these.
Land of Things Christmas Puzzle
Today Tammy put together this years custom Christmas Puzzle that we made for her and it came out really well. It was definitely the hardest puzzle we have created yet. We titled it “Land of Things”.
And here it is put together in 18x24" 500 piece jigsaw puzzle.
We took a unique approach this year. Tyler and I have been having fun with Townscaper so I asked Tyler to create the overall base of the puzzle using Townscaper. He used the iPad and spent a while creating various islands and buildings. We thematically tied each location to houses and neighborhoods we have lived in. We also included our cabin as an island that you had to get to by boat.
After we had the scene in Townscaper I loaded the city on the desktop version of Townscaper in Steam because it could render it larger and export a higher quality image. Using a screenshot on the iPad wasn’t high enough resolution.
I took that image and then we loaded it into Procreate and Mazie went to work drawing on top of it. We added grass, various scenes, decorated some things, a big sea dragon, etc. The details were really great.
Notice the GEM Tomatoes stand that was so awesome in our old neighborhood.
Our old neighborhood in Minnetonka with the Rock’s next door having rocks in their yard.
Lucky is hanging out in the back yard playing with a tennis ball.
I love the lighthouse with people hanging out on it, and the ice cream shop with people waiting in line.
We could have spent so much more time adding special details but we had to finish, we took well over our deadline as it is. It is incredible how much time a good jigsaw puzzle takes to design!
We are already thinking about 2022’s Christmas Puzzle! 🧩
Mazie is making steady progress learning to drive. This is not a view I’m used to.
We all enjoyed watching A Boy Called Christmas tonight. Mazie and Tyler had read the book. It was a great new Christmas movie for all. 🎅
Tyler and I played as a team and came in 2nd in Ticket to Ride Japan. It is a fun variant with the community bullet train encouraging some cooperative play.
The two most important ingredients when making lasagna are:
Mazie and I made this pan with plenty of love, and the Three Tenors accompanying us!
We all volunteered at Free Bikes 4 Kidz today. Tammy, Mazie, and Tyler did cleaning of donated bikes. I tried my hand at the mechanic station working on derailers, brakes, truing wheels and a lot of other stuff I didn’t know how to do. 😊
We stopped in at SI Hobby in downtown Faribault for their grand opening today! Tyler got a few Pokémon card packs. We arrived about 10 minutes after they opened the doors and there was already a good crowd of people there. 👍
Our first year with the garden was a good success. We learned a lot and had successes and misses. Tammy and Mazie reset everything so we are ready to plant in the spring. We are giving one box just to strawberries.
