David and Jennilyn

On Saturday, Jenni, Jack, and I lugged computers over to Clark’s house for some video gaming to celebrate Clark’s and my birthdays. January 20th was a good midpoint between our birthdays.

I had recently put together a new computer and there’s no better way to ‘test out’ a new computer than playing video games. And the new computer was glorious to play games on.

Several of Clark’s groomsmen were present and they played Rune while Jack, Jenni, and I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Later, Jenni and Mary played Battle for Middle Earth 2 while Jack and I joined in on Rune. The amount of mouse clicking was insane as we played Rune for an hour.

We played a big game of Battle for Middle Earth 2 with five human players against three computer players toward the end of the gaming party. The computer team didn’t pose much of a challenge the first game, but they almost took me out in our second game. Fortunately, everyone came to bail me out, I recovered from my loss, and we had a very satisfying victory.

Sunday, we went to church and quickly got back to our apartment for a big family gathering celebrating Travis’ birthday. We had 13 people in our small apartment. There was great food and lots of laughs, but the best laugh came during the group picture:

There’s nothing like watching dance videos to get inspired about dancing. So I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate but to have a birthday party for my friends and I to watch Mary’s new US Open 2005 DVDs.

Jenni and I spent New Year’s day with family playing Uno Stacko at my mom’s cousin’s house. It was great playing all together and watching everyone’s expression as they tried not to make the tower fall over.

The new year has been going well so far for us, both of us caught a cold that’s been getting around my office, but we’re enjoying being sick together. It just means more movie time =)

Jennilyn’s family is fun and creative in their Christmas gifts. They go the full ten yards in wrapping the gift with unusual boxes, noise makers, and special shapes to prevent the recipient from guessing what is inside.

My first Christmas with Jennilyn, I got the gag wrap where there are bags inside of bags inside of bags. And then there was duct tape to get through. Last year, Jennilyn put metal nails and batteries inside my gift so when I shook it, I would hear metal clashing and thuds.

Leah, James, Jack, Jenni and I visited the OMSI exhibit of Star Wars to see the science of the space saga. There were many props on display from all six movies in the two triologies, including models, costumes, lightsabers, blasters, and vehicles. More after the jump into hyperspace!

It’s been an interesting few days with the high-speed winds blowing in the northwest. We experienced two blackouts in three days.

We wish everyone a wonderful and great Thanksgiving! In the spirit of turkeys, the picture above was actually taken last year at my company’s Thanksgiving Turkey party. One of my talented coworkers made turkey cupcakes to share with everyone at the office.

Food art is pretty cool, it’s just too bad that it gets eaten up.

Wow! Jenni and I are so thrilled to be featured on several blogs for our Pirate Captain Jack O’ Lantern! I woke up today, opened my blog’s dashboard to wipe off some comment spam, and found a reference from the MAKE magazine’s web site to our blog. I headed on over and saw a link to our own Captain Jack featured on their homepage!