Anniversary Weekend

Julia and I aren't married, but we like to celebrate the day we met and started dating. December 1st is that day, so we made plans to spend the day together and have some fun.

At first we thought about staying at a nice hotel somehwere, or going out to a nice dinner, but then we looked at our bank account and decided to be responsible.

Instead of going out to dinner on our anniversary, we went out a couple of days before.

Then instead of staying in a hotel and ordering room service, we stayed home all day Saturday and did things together. Thankfully, I'd finished my writing project, so I could dedicate all day to her and our plans. We work up at a reasonable hour, then went out for breakfast at a local bagel place, then bought our first Christmas tree together. Awwww!

We carted it home, figured out how to plug the hole in the side of the tree stand because we'd lost a piece to it, put lights on it and the outside of the house, and then Julia decorated it while my cold demanded that I sit semi-comatose for a while.

The tree looks great and it's exactly the size and look we wanted. Mom would be proud and hopefully I'll have some pictures to show off soon.

Later in the day we made some chocolate-covered peanut butter balls and watched some of The Sopranos disks we had from Netflix.

It was a good day.

Sunday we were up early to get Julia to one of her regular jewelry shows, but then we learned that it wasn't going to happen until December 16th, so we were up and moving early for no reason. Oh well.

Around noon, people started showing up for my weekely D&D game. Kristian was nice enough to help me move around some furniture to make way for the giant TV Jason would be dropping off later. When the others showed up we played for a bit, then took a break when Jason showed up with the TV (and gas grill, and lawnmower), so they helped unload and organize. Yes, I have great friends. Then we continued the game.

For those that care; the game went much better this week. The big tank of a fighter was back, but I'd changed the encounter from another save-or-die sort of thing to more of a slugfest against two very challenging young black dragons who'd found their way into the temple via the elemental plane of water (there was a portal to and from there in the temple). There was more, but that fight was a good one for the players and I think they enjoyed having a little more of a fighting chance than they would have otherwise.

In gaming-related news, I've been thinking of writing up a "contract" that GMs should follow while running games. I need to give it some more thought because there are only a couple of points I can clearly state right now and I want to have a few more to round it out. I'll keep you updated as I work on it.

Oh, sorry, I was sidetracked by gaming; anyway, the giant TV is now set up and I picked up an HD cable box, so now we have super-cable with nice sharp images on our screen. I'm very excited to spend some quality time in front of it with my girl.

More soon.