Lots of Photos and Endless Fame

The Kirkland Urban development thing near our apartment was having a Santa do some free photos and Lydia and Zoe took Big Wernie over for an appearance. We did our paid photo shoot at the mall a few weeks ago and... you definitely get what you pay for.

In observance of the Christmas spirit I won't criticize too much. It's a nice thing to offer for free especially to needy folks out there.

I think Zoe played around with the background later on to spruce it up a bit.

Ernie seems interested anyway.

My buddy British Mike was working on a cool and asked me to be a play tester. It was pretty cool, kind of a choose your own adventure book where when you meet a bad guy you then go into a Magic the Gathering card game mode and fight it out. It was a fun experience. As a thank you they mailed me the finished product once they had finished.

It's up on Amazon now and it's fun to see the breathless marketing they conjured for it:

"Explore new lands, battle monsters, and uncover secrets in this imaginative reinvention of the choose-your-own-path adventure game - complete with an interactive gamebook and 52 combat cards.

You've never seen anything like the City - a vast metal mechanism, hovering above the plains of the Continent, crackling with magical energy. Its ancient mechanisms once regulated the ebb and flow of arcane power; but now its clockwork is failing, wrecked by a saboteur who moves in the shadows. Can you survive a journey across a land racked by chaos to reach the City, and find a way to restore order? Draw action cards, annotate interactive maps-and carve out your own, unique path in a land of endless destinies!

• EMBARK ON A NEW TYPE OF QUEST: This innovative narrative experience brings together the thrilling story arc o­f a choose-your-own-path adventure and the exciting play style of a modern deck-builder card game.

• EXPLORE AN ORIGINAL FANTASY WORLD: The gamebook is artfully written by poet and author Corinna Keefe; and beautifully realized with full-color book and card illustrations by Paula Zorite.

• CREATE A UNIQUE PROTAGONIST: Use the bespoke character sheet to design a champion like no other. Equip powerful items and take advantage of a unique "leveling-up" system to choose new cards for your deck, developing incredible abilities.

• EXPLORE INTERACTIVE MAPS: The skillfully illustrated maps in the gamebook allow you explore new areas freely. As you discover new rumors or make significant changes to places you visit, you will annotate and rework each map.

• CALL THE SHOTS: Every time you make a decision, your journey will branch down a different path. Are you noble or morally ambiguous? Choose the quest that calls to you, for good or for ill ...

• NO DICE NEEDED: Don't place your destiny in the roll of a dice. Instead use combat cards to choose your battle.

• HOW-TO-PLAY VIDEO AND DOWLOADABLES INCLUDED: Don't like reading instructions? Follow the QR code instead to access an easy-to-follow gameplay video and handy downloadable content.

FORGE YOUR FATE WITH ENDLESS DESTINIES!"

I got a mention in the credits in the front of the book! IMMORTALITY IS MINE

We made up for that questionable Santa thing with some home photos in matching jammies.

I thought they came out pretty spiffy.

My ex boss Roger from Microsoft is cool enough that we still hang out even though we're no longer coworkers. He invited me over to his house for a holiday party and it was a whole lot of fun. These might be the rowdiest people I know in the state of Washington. They even had a make your own ramen bar which was baller.

I already had my jam jams on so I just wore them out for maximum jolliness.

Bringing the Aloha to Kirkland

Ernie had a blast in Japan and Hawaii but he was also happy to be back home and play with all of his toys again.

Oh, it's been brought.

Ernie helped his mom in the kitchen in a managerial capacity.

Dirty Ernie's First Bath

Bambino Ernesto's pesky umbilical cord chunk finally fell off so after a bit of additional waiting for it to fully heal up we gave his him first tubby time.

All parties involved had some learning to do about how to scrub-a-dub an Ernie bub, but things ended well I think. Especially I brought his high definition pictures for him to look at he calmed himself.

He had had a pimple looking thing on his cheek since he was born and I think I deserve a medal for never poking at it even once.

So fresh, so clean.

We celebrated having a clean little man by having some Turkish food at Istanbul Cuisine outside of Bellevue Square Mall. In the Istanbul airport lounge there's a station that makes pide, which is kind of a pizza-esque flatbread type of deal. They are always either closed or baking the pide while still being unavailable. At any rate when I saw them on the menu at this place I was forced to get involved.

We met up with our friends Shubra and Sumit at our local brewery: Chainline Brewing Company at Kirkland Urban. Everybody wants to meet the Ern-Dawg.

What will they think of next?

One of my favorite pastimes is watching Ernie sleep.

Ernie's First Bar

Our philosophy with raising lil Ern Dawg is that we want to bring him along on our life journey, not completely change our lives for him. So we wanted to get him out and about as soon as possible.

Our big first step social outing was taking Ernie to check out the little bar in our local QFC grocery store. We introduced him to our friends Miriam and Michael.

He did very well.

Caring for Ernesto

One of Ernie's quirks is he doesn't really seem to mind when he has a dirty diaper. He does, on the other hand, mind when you change his diaper. Part of it may be it's cold, and part of it may be he's out of his swaddle and the lack of that safe feeling makes him sad. At any rate we often tag team him when changing his diapers.

Feetsies!

I sort of figured once I had a kid that I would never be able to play a video game again. It turns out I can still play and just have a sleepy little potato in my lap while I do it. No big deal.

Ernie getting some of his first tummy time.

At this point Ernie's play time involves a lot of staring at high contrast pictures.

We took him out for his first walk outside in his new stroller. We got this cool thing where his carseat attaches to the stroller.

I've never really needed to take the elevator in Kirkland Urban before. I guess I'm an elevator person now.

We couldn't give Ernie real baths yet because we weren't supposed to get this umbilical cord stump wet. We did give his crusty hair a little wet brush treatment, though. He's not really into pacifiers but he does like to suck on your finger for comfort on occasion.

At work I'm a contractor so I don't get any sort of parental leave benefits from my job. Luckily though I live in Washington and they have an awesome paid leave program. I get three months, of which I'm going to take three weeks off initially and then additional weeks off sporadically later on. Lydia has done some magic with leave, summer break, PTO, and who knows what else to create a beast of a maternity leave that will last like 7 months. What a lucky baby.