Pool doodle/journal entry!

We've been doing a fair amount of swimming lately. For some reason my children have incredibly thick amounts of hair (wonder where they got that from?) and so we've just started on swimming caps for them. The only one that came close to fitting Sophie's hair was an adult large, and still doesn't cover it 100%. She winds up looking like she's channeling Marge Simpson with her big tall blue headgear.

They are getting the hugest kick out of the Olympics. They jump up and cheer, lay on the floor to demonstrate a proper backstroke, and generally get carried away. I love it.

(#63 from our 100 Things to do This Summer list)

According to the Nazzaro School of Art Direction, you must have the following:

1. Curly hair. Lots of it. May be piled atop head.
2. Glasses, the better to squint critically at your work.
3. The ability to make weird faces.
4. The compulsion to work and rework something until it is perfect, no matter how much it bugs the heck out of everyone around you. Demand excellence!

According to this list, Angela should be ready to report for work any day now.

Last week, we started something truly awesome with our children, something we've been waiting to do with them for years.

A D&D campaign!

Paul is doing a great job of tailoring it for the kids, making it challenging but not boring, and also bending the rules an awful lot so it's more fun. They rolled up and named their characters, and Peter kept asking, "So this is on the computer, right?"

"No, Peter."

"Okay, so it's a board game then?"

"No, Peter. It's in your head."

"Wait, I see dice... where is the board again?"

"Peter, just sit down and watch!"

(five minutes later, Peter has a revelation)

"It's ALL IN MY HEAD!" Mind. Blown.

We've had an absolute blast playing with the kids; they are so creative and funny and have great ideas. Instead of rolling up a new character, we brought back a VERY old one of mine from back in the day. The kids got such a giggle out of Brüna Stonginthearm and her dubious accent that we had to bring her back by popular demand. The sketch up top was doodled during one evening's campaign on a too-small piece of paper (which accounts for extra-shortness of our taller characters). I should post the version Angela colored in, everyone is wearing an awful lot of orange, for some reason. Just the thing for, you know, blending in and taking the enemy by surprise.

You know what they say; the family that plays together...

...stays together. At least, we think so.