Talia – Page 4 – An Unorthodox Halloween

Little diversions.

Strange weekend.

Lots of little sidetracks. Oh sure, I got some more gardening in, and finished up sanding Trevor (thank god), but it was mostly filled with sidetracks.

Talia’s Dance recital, for instance…where I sat and critiqued the lighting in my head whilst waiting for her turn.

While interesting, the main little detour of the weekend came in the form of an unexpected source from thatgamecompany.

“thatgamecompany designs and develops artistically crafted, broadly accessible video games that push the boundaries of interactive entertainment. We respect our players and want to contribute meaningful, enriching experiences that touch and inspire them.”

In the form of their game, Journey.

“An interactive parable, an anonymous online adventure to experience a person’s life passage and their intersections with other’s.”

Really just a DIFFERENT experience. Little instructions are given, and you soon find yourself running around talking to tombstones with random people you meet. Real people, also playing, but you never know who they are.

Somehow fitting I find a game all about tombstones as I’m wondering what on earth I’m going to do for ours.

eh…why not?

Gardening time.

Been working dirt a lot lately.

Talia has thuroughly enjoyed her role as “the flower boss” and our little shopping trip together so she could pick out our flowers was quite fun. She’s always thrilled to see them blooming, and getting new ones.

Her “Magic” flowers, that open with the sun and close at night are the favorites, I think.

And, we finally have an official garden.

Renting a sod cutter and clearing out most of the grass there made for a full day with Kyle. Mostly making room for corn and pumpkins, of course. We need to clean out the grass along the fenceline by hand, as I want to keep my raven grass along there, and there were some old bush stumps that need to be dug out, couldn’t just run the sod cutter through there.

All the dirt didn’t stop me from getting the kids out to play, though.

The train was especially fun since the tigers were restless on a rather chilly Saturday morning.

And the Lion was letting them know who was boss. Not often you get to see one ‘talking’.

Of course we had to hit the terror ride as well. Don’t think I’ve ever noticed that figure lurking off to the right cubby here. There’s stuff coming out the door and windows that distract from it. Lots of little treasures like that on this ride.

The best part was that it broke down and lost some power while we were on it. Alec and I stuck in the dark surrounded by skeletons, with nothing but the scary music playing was priceless. If I ever get to build a dark ride, I would include a long pitch black stretch. Nothing scares people more than their own imagination.

Tomb time.

Slowly cobbling things together for my tomb.

Built a foam cutter from mostly spare parts.

Then got to work getting all the pieces on the tomb itself.

Debating whether it’s a bit too tall or not. I mean, it fits in with realistic dimmensions, but wondering if I want to chop a foot off so kids can see the top more.

Next I need to start working on the fog chiller. But, even without, it’s coming along nicely on that front as well.

Now to start thinking on decorating the thing…

Crusty and girlfriend.

First decent snowfall of the year, Talia has named them “Crusty” and “Crusty’s girlfriend”.

Alec is actually quite adept at making snowmen, turns out. Kyle, not so much. Talia still just wants to eat the snow.

Talia’s new friend(s)

We ended up delivering our third Chimera over to Diablo’s Dome on Saturday.

“Max”, as Talia named it.

Got a little tour of the place, and Talia got to say goodbye to “Max”.

While out in that part of town, we took the Talia and Alec over to The Living Planet Aquarium. Unforutnately, my camera battery had decided to go at that point.

We did get a little pic of Talia and one of her new friends, however.

From 2011 buildup

Settling in on a tough week, myself. This is my time of year. It’s in the air, on the wind…and I’m on business travel.

Still, it’s provided me the opportunity to reunite with my own fears. Driving through a dark woods, listening to a scary book on tape about Bigfoot…