Building Castles, Waking Dragons, Catching Bombs, and Avoiding Boardwalk

Emi started the day by completing the 1,368-piece Lego version of Helm's Deep his Fort Worth grandparents gave him for Christmas.

He and I then saw The Desolation of Smaug together for the second time--for the first time in 3D with a High Frame Rate at Ada's brand new Cinemark 6. This was Emilio's second visit to the new cinema (he and Mari went last Saturday), but my first, and I was totally impressed. I feel my quality of life expectations for Ada just took a significant step forward. Once again, I hear the siren call of the silver screen--especially with so many highly rated movies showing here, including--in addition to The Desolation of Smaug (Metacritic rating: 66) and Frozen (74), which I've already seen--American Hustle (90), The Wolf of Wall Street (75), and Anchorman 2 (61).

On our return from the movies, we went on a Wintersmith walk with the rest of the family (and the squishy mini-football Santa brought into our lives), and then retired to W. 19th for the first game of Monopoly to be played under this roof during our tenure here (it was Emilio's second game ever and la abuela's first in a long time), and a late night screening of a recorded episode of The Sing-Off: Season Four.

First the Tree, then a Return to Middle Earth

This time, the Fellowship prevails. That's Emilio as Frodo, Olivia as Fatty, Lisa as Merry, Mari as Pippin, Me as Sam, Brian as Gamemaster/Gandalf, and Lyndsae as Uncle Bilbo.

Santa was here

So was Lisa. In disguise.

This was the year Emilio graduated to board games. After playing Reiner Knizia's The Lord of the Rings on the 23rd, and Monopoly on the 24th, the family played Ticket to Ride: Europe for the first time on the 25th. Olivia won.

Tex Glitter

Starring Emilio, wearing the new boots and Levi's we bought yesterday. That's the Christmas program I went to see today, though apparently, lots of other people came to see an ensemble production titled"Santa's Holiday Hoedown," featuring a cast of thousands, including Belle Billingsley as Mrs. Glitter, and Tyler Cantrell and Carl McCortney as their sons, Jason and John.


"My name is Tex Glitter . . . "

"Elvis? Elvis is here?"

"This audience will watch anything . . . "

Team Bobsled and Bedlam

Below: between Vivi and Bedlam (final result: #17 OU 33, #6 OSU 24).

River Legacy Emi

The cake part!

Emilio's favorite part of the Benton-Nielsen wedding reception.