PERSONAL NEWS: Birthdays Left & Right!

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Hi Everyone!

Wow! It seems like everytime I turn around this month, I have more birthdays to worry about whether Peter "Primarch" Ramos, local gamer Charlie, or my two nephews Quinn and Ryan!

And it was those two, my two lovable nephews that had a birthday bash this weekend (Saturday evening, 19 August 2006)... put a real crimp in my gaming plans! It was great though... we all met up at Red Robin, a burger joint, and enjoyed each other's company.

Quinn and Ryan came out like bandits too... their grandmothers went in together and got them some kind of fancy hand-held Nintendo devices... DS or something like that and their favorite uncle got them...

Godzilla toys!

Quinn received Mecha-Godzilla...

And Ryan is now the proud owner of King Ghidora...

That kid always hams it up for the camera!

You see we always play a Godzilla game on their SuperNintendo together and all of the kids invariably gang up on their uncle and give me a good drubbing. The Godzilla toys were a big hit.

And my sister made good use of my artistic and gaming skills. I was put in charge of decorating the cakes. She gave me two designs to transplant onto the cakes.

Quinn got a dinosaur that had to be mean-looking (that required a few alterations to the harmless dino I was given)...

And Ryan had to have Yu-Gi-Oh! What a design it was!

As usual, I have shared my photos here:

http://briefurl.com/Bdays_8-19-2006

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And, lo and behold, I was double-blessed with good company this weekend! My friend Joe called and came by today (Sunday, 20 August 2006) for a visit. He recently traded a number of board games for a 15mm ancients miniatures haul... full of Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians and who knows what else. I lent him a number of Ospreys (History books with color illustration plates) and other references to get him started. We chatted a good part of afternoon away and enjoyed some tasty libations. Joe, also brought some of his latest miniature painting artistry... I'll have to drum up some photos of his miniatures painting talents at some date in the future.

And I should always have such good company! Omayn!

All in all, a good weekend... even if I didn't get much gaming in!

I wish the best to all!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
And one last shot of my niece...

Cute as a button, isn't she?