Hello everyone!

I just thought I would leave a quick note for all of you about Christmas for the girls this year. Both of them have Amazon Wish Lists, just search under their name. Please remember to look at any little notes next to items and to sort the list by both unpurchased and priority.

Nadya has recently had a growth spurt and wears a 6X and she wears a size 11 shoe (although she has a ton of shoes). She LOVES dresses, but if you get her a dress, please also consider good, warm tights for it so she will be warm enough this winter. She just got her ears pierced and would love some earrings, please no dangles but hoops are fine. She loves dress-up, items for her American Girl dolls and Webkinz, art and reading.

Cali wears a size 10, although her pants need to be a slim, and a size 2 in shoes. She prefers pants and a top and is fond of ANYTHING with an animal on it. She loves animals, items for her American Girls and Webkinz, reading, and any kind of game including board games, DS, Wii and computer.

Hope to see all of you around Christmas!
Denise

This has been a year of ups and downs, even more than I believe it usually is. On the positive side, I changed jobs and now work at the kids' school, Nadya began kindergarten, Calista began tae kwon do and LOVES it, we got a new "niece", and my cousin got married to a very nice woman.

On the more difficult side, we lost Grammy (Tyler's maternal grandmother) and my great-aunt, and both of my maternal grandparents were injured and have spent much of the year recovering.

We also have had our house on the market for about 2 1/2 months now without a bid, although we have had some traffic. I am excited about the prospect of moving, but this process is also very stressful. But we have gotten through all of it as a family and we are genuinely as happy as we have ever been.

Thank you all for being a part of that family! We count you all as blessings and as we celebrate Thanksgiving in the next month, we will be giving thanks for you!

Denise

Took the Nerd Test

Calista's class wrote, directed and produced commercials. Here are two of the ones she was in.

Commercial 1

Commercial 2

It seems our lives are always changing.

Just yesterday we welcomed a new "niece" to our family. Our friends, Brian and Heidi, had their second child, Sarah Michal. Both Heidi and Sarah are doing well and the baby is just adorable!

I have accepted a position at Calista's school, the school Nadya will start kindergarten at in the fall. I will be working in public relations and development. While it is sad to leave the paper after 7 1/2 years, I am excited about this new point in my life. In fact, this will work out very well in the fall because all three of us girls will be on the same schedule at the same place.

Tyler continues his work for KoreLogic from home. He really enjoys it and especially loves not having to dress up every day.

We hope everyone else is doing well!
Denise

The creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax, died a few days ago. Since I have been playing role playing games, starting with D&D, since I was 11 or 12, I got to thinking of all the memorable moments I've had playing. Here are a few of them:

- Having one of our friends say he was going to attack with his scabard. He didn't realize that the scabard was the sheath for the sword.

- Having my character killed by a dragon and used for perverse pleasure by it later on. Let's just say duct tape was used.

- Creating a wizard character named 'Dude'. In order to make him stronger, I ran an adventure where they were walking through the woods and found 1 million gold pieces. (In D&D 1 gold piece = 1 experience point...or at least it did.) Needless to say all of our characters were pretty powerful after that.

- Playing through all hours of the night. One time, I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open and played between taking small naps (and being hit to stay awake).

- Learning that Mountain Dew helped keep you awake.

- Downloading all of the Internet "net books" for spells and such and printing all 400+ pages out on my work's laser printer. There were advantages to being the only one working at night. :)

- After hearing we were playing D&D, having a friend's father ask, "You aren't dressing up like them, are you?" Funnily, a few years later we were.

- Having a friend design an intricate castle and village he bought with his 1 million GP and playing through massive attacks against it.

- Still knowing what PP, GP, EP, SP and CP stand for and what the conversion rates between them are.

Good times. Now I'm in the mood to play again. Anyone up for a D&D game?

For those who read this site for my security stuff (I suspect there may be a few of you), I have started a separate security blog at http://secshoggoth.blogspot.com.

I did this so I wouldn't be mixing family-related stuff with my work/research-related stuff.

The girls have both settled into school well this year. Pictures of both girls on their first day are posted.

Calista loves third grade and was delighted to find one of the new students in her class just happens to live a little more than 3 blocks from us. She continues to take piano lessons and is taking swimming again. She wants to try tae kwon do as well to see if she likes it.

Nadya loves her new pre-k! She wasn't sure about the five days a week at first, but she likes not having to nap and often gets to spend her afternoons with her friend, Tessa. Since the two girls have known each other since they were tiny, I think having Tessa in Nadya's class has also made it an easier adjustment for her.

Several of you have asked for some suggestions for Christmas for the girls.

Calista wears a size 8 slim in pants and usually needs a 10 in a shirt, just for the length. She will wear almost anything, but can be kind of a tomboy. She has quite a few pairs of pants, but can always use shirts and especially sweatshirts and sweaters. She has filled out a list on Amazon which you can reach either by clicking on the link or by searching by her name on Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/105-5097744-4648438?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=3T5WW7O6EPW6L

Nadya wears a size 5 and is especially fond of dresses (preferably one piece). Please consider tights if you are buying her a dress, as she often likes to wear them even in snow. She has also filled out a list on Amazon which I have supplied a link for below.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/105-5097744-4648438?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=24CIOQXUP1FCV

Hope everyone is having a wonderful fall!
Denise