Tag: birthday

Heather’s Birthday 2025

October 29, 2025 10:07 pm

Heather’s birthday was on a Tuesday this year–a Tuesday on which her orchestra planned an all-evening event plus concert. Since her day was going to be nonstop from wake up to bedtime with only a brief break after school we celebrated on the prior Saturday.

Her birthday adventure was, echoing the game show in the movie, a KPop Demon Hunters game show!

To start, and in between each event, she needed to answer trivia questions. She got 13 out of 14 correct.

Her first set of questions:

1. What is the name of the magical barrier maintained by HUNTR/X?
The Honmoon

2. What are the names of the HUNTR/X singers?
Rumi, Mira, and Zoey

3. What is the name of HUNTR/X’s manager?
Bobby

4. Where do Mira and Zoey regularly go that Rumi refuses to join them?
The bathhouse

My Little Soda Pop

After the warm-up trivia questions she had her first event. The Saja Boys debut single is Soda Pop. In this game she was presented with 10 jars of soda pop and she needed to identify the 5 pairs of matching flavors.

The 5 flavors were: Coke, Vanilla Coke, Orange-cream Coke, Cherry Coke, and Root Beer (other flavors would have been more fun, but colors would kind of give it away). Corinne helped by taking notes.

She got 3 of the 5 pairs correct on her first try. With careful consideration she found the mismatch.

With the sodas identified we moved on to the next round of trivia.

5. What is the demon ruler’s name?
Gwi-Ma

6. What are the names of the Saja Boys?
Jinu, Romance, Mystery, Abby, and Baby

7. Who trained HUNTR/X?
Celine

8. How many eyes does the bird have?
Six

Takedown

When the Saja Boys debuted, HUNTR/X realized they’re demons and decided to write a dis track called Takedown. Heather’s next event was to take down various foods hanging from the ceiling without using her hands.

She had to eat two Ritz crackers, a mini chocolate donut, and a full-size glazed donut. She needed to try to complete this before Derpy (played by Corinne) could eat two mini chocolate donuts.

Corinne understood the proper tactic immediately by getting the whole donut in her mouth and pulling it off the string. Heather, instead, attempted to nibble the Ritz crackers from the edges. Derpy won.

And another round of trivia, getting harder.

9. Who does HUNTR/X get the healing tonic from?
Healing Han

10. What was the name of Celine’s musical group?
Sunlight Sisters

11. Which of Rumi’s arms gets exposed to Jinu during their battle in the bathhouse?
Right

Golden

HUNTR/X plans to seal the Honmoon with their new single, Golden. But, oh no, the Saja Boys have interfered and corrupted the gold. Heather needed to identify which nugget was the real gold based on density (rather obviously not real gold, just various things wrapped in a gold-colored wrapper).

She immediately set to work measuring the weights and volumes then calculating the densities. Was successfully identified the correct nugget.

The nuggets were: a ball of aluminum foil, a ping pong ball (so mainly air), steel washers, pennies (mainly zinc), and a lead weight.

The final round of trivia:

12. What is the bird’s name?
Sussie

13. What is the cat’s name?
Derpy

14. What does “Saja” mean in English?
Lion

Face it and Fix it

Her final game was inspired by the lyrics of Free and What it Sounds Like. In Free, Rumi sings, “we can’t fix it if we never face it” and in What it Sounds Like, she sings, “I broke into a million pieces.” In this event Heather needed to face something broken and fix it. The broken thing was pictures of her face and to fix it she needed to use…only her face!

She was a lot faster at it than I expected. I probably would have made them a little harder had I known how effective she’d be.

That completed our game show and our contestant won fabulous prizes in the form of wrapped presents!

This year Heather joined the ranks of the cell phone owners. One of the very few kids in her grade left to do so.

For dinner we went to the Cheesecake Factory and then back home for cake. Heather asked for a cheesecake with brownie crust which I made. I’m pretty happy with out it turned out.

Spooky Strings Concert

On her actual birthday her orchestra put on a Spooky Strings concert with Mendenhall Middle School.

Or download here:

Heather Spooky Strings Orchestra Performance 2025-10-28Download

Jess’ Birthday 2025

September 22, 2025 10:41 pm

Jess’ birthday was on Saturday this year so she got the whole weekend to celebrate. Which she needed, because she felt super lousy starting in the afternoon and we postponed dinner and cake until Sunday.

Corinne created a treasure hunt for her which, naturally, led her to her presents. We got that done around lunch time before Jess crawled into bed for the rest of the day.

On Sunday we played a round of Garden Variety and a few rounds of Cat Fluxx (new games Jess got for her birthday).

We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and then home for the salted-caramel cheesecake I’ve been trying to perfect. I realized this year that the recipe for a caramel topping I’d been using is not actually a caramel recipe (white sugar)–it’s a butterscotch recipe (brown sugar and butter). So I switched to an actual caramel recipe. Still working out how to get the caramel stiff enough so it doesn’t run off the sides. Next year, I’m planning to mix in powdered sugar once it cools to stiffen it up, which I did experimentally for the (poorly-piped) decorations. Also need to figure out how to keep the water in the water bath from getting into the springform pan and making the blondie crust soggy. But it still tastes really good.

Kyle’s Birthday 2025

June 10, 2025 5:23 pm

I had been trying to come up with something to do for my birthday, but not finding anything exciting when Jess discovered there was a circus in town–Venardos Circus! They weren’t performing on my actual birthday, so we went to see it the day before. It was just down the street from us–couldn’t have been any more convenient. We drove over and ate lunch and then got in when they opened the doors so we could get pretty-much-perfect seats.

It was a small circus, which I think I liked better than a big production. No matter where you sat you were no more than ~30 feet from the stage so you got to see everything really up close. You could see the performers’ muscles shaking and watch the expressions on their faces showing how difficult the acts were. It felt more personal than a big production with hundreds of seats where everything is perfectly polished. I think the group perfectly embodied the concept of the traveling circus spectacle.

They had a juggler, a modern concept of a clown, acrobats, trampolines, lots of energy, and lots of fun. I highly recommend it and would be happy to go again if they come through town in the future.

The next day, I took the day off of work to enjoy my birthday. Had a lazy start to the day and did some reading. For lunch I wanted to sit somewhere quiet, so we took some sandwiches out to Brushy Peak Regional Preserve and sat at a shaded picnic table. Watched some rabbits or hares hopping around the landscape. It was nice.

There’s a rabbit in the shade under this picnic table:

After lunch we played the first scenario in Tales from the Red Dragon Inn. A game which I got for my birthday last year. I have too many campaign games waiting to be played. No buying more campaign games until I’ve played the ones I have. We were victorious (it’s intended to be a casual, light-hearted dungeon crawl, so winning should be pretty easy).

After getting the game cleaned up it was time for a surprise from the girls–my very own treasure hunt! I started by visiting the Library of Secrets and receiving a clue from the librarian. And from there I was sent all about the house until I had assembled the components of a computer and typed in the password I obtained along the way.

Completing the treasure hunt naturally unlocked my presents as the prize, which I opened next.

And from there it was dinner time. We went to BJ’s and it was decidedly disappointing. But there was a delicious cake waiting when we got back to make up for it.

After eating cake we went up the hill at Cayetano Park and watched the sun set. There was a cloud bank over the western hills, so it was a bit anti-climactic.

Corinne’s 10th Birthday

March 29, 2025 11:39 am

Corinne wanted more Minecraft adventuring for her Birthday. During the past year she was really excited about getting a bees add on so this year’s adventure was focused on bees.

Her adventure started with a return to Blockville from last year. The villagers welcomed her back and informed her of some exciting changes in town. First, the Ender Dragon she helped last year (whose name turned out to be Ethan) had taken a liking to humans and moved into town. Second, bees had appeared and everyone was having a blast raising them and eating honey. They suggested she try her hand at setting up a hive.

Her first task was to speak to farmer Peregrine who knew all about hives and how to craft them. But, alas, a zombie attack had left his hive recipe in tatters. She would need to repair the recipe before she could make a hive.

With the recipe repaired she determined she needed 8 pieces of wood and block of lemongrass to create the hive. So off to the Forest to find it.

With supplies in hand she used the crafting table in the Workshop to make the bee hive. Then she spoke to beekeeper Beatrice, who moved to Blockville to follow the bees, about how to attract bees to her hive. Beatrice told her that her best option was to talk to Ethan (the Ender Dragon). He always had great information about where to find bees. There would be a price to his information, but it would be worth it.

Ethan told her that he had developed quite a taste for honey. He’d tried many kinds, but had heard legend of a special “galactic honey” that he just needed to try. If she could collect the right kind of bees and the right kind of nectar the bees would turn it into galactic honey. He gave Corinne a list of bees and where to find them. (I 3D-printed a bunch of little Minecraft bees in various colors and hid them around the house and outside.)

With the proper bees collected she needed to collect nectar (from in jars with Minecraft flowers scattered about) and then test it for quality. Ethan provided a special testing powder that, when added to high-quality nectar, would cause it to bubble and fizz (I decided to capitalize on Corinne’s lack of a sense of smell; nectar was either vinegar or water, thus the special powder was baking soda).

I apparently didn’t take any pictures of the galactic honey, so we’ll have to make do with this screengrab from the video camera. It was corn syrup with some blue and purple food coloring and some sparkly sprinkles (which mostly sank to the bottom). I had tried to make “rainbow honey”, but the food coloring was far too effective at diffusing throughout the corn syrup even after trying to use corn starch to change the densities of the colors.

Ethan was ecstatic about the galactic honey. To show Corinne his appreciation he gave her a compass he’d received from a wandering trader. The trader had promised it would lead to treasure, so if she found something she could keep it.

The compass was a crowdfunding project I backed last year (Truest North Compass). It uses GPS and a magnetometer to show you the direction and distance to a programmable point on the Earth. Unfortunately, the rain seemed to be interfering with its accuracy. And the magnetometer was confused while inside the van. So it didn’t go quite how I had hoped it would, but we found the treasure box hidden in the hollow of a tree at a nearby park (a friend placed it and kept an eye on it while we made our way there).

Back home to open it up and find it full of coins. Minecraft Coins! (As described in the contained envelope.)

Then Corinne opened some presents. We went to dinner at the location of her choice (McDonald’s). Then back home for cake. Another successful birthday.

Heather’s Birthday 2024

October 29, 2024 6:40 pm

Heather had a birthday / Halloween party this year to start off her celebration. I ran a minigame competition with a “Top Banana” trophy as the prize. They competed in 5 events: jigsaw puzzling (complete a small puzzle), dice stacking (stack dice on a tongue depressor held in your teeth), cup shuffling (alternating hands, remove the top cup of a stack and put it on the bottom until the first cup is back on top), Ping Pong carry (using a tiny, sample spoon carry Ping Pong balls across the yard), and the toilet-paper spray (use a spray bottle to spray a hanging strip of toilet paper that has a clothes pin on the bottom until the strip breaks and the clothes pin falls).

Then there was pizza, treats, and the general silliness of middle-school kids. Then back outside for “ghost pictures” (double-exposures using a flash).

Once our spooky pictures were complete it was back inside for birthday/Halloween trifle and filling up 3D-printed pumpkins with candy to take home. A good time seems to have been had by all.

The Birthday Adventure

On her birthday it was school and homework, but once finally complete it was time for a Warrior Cats Birthday Adventure (Heather’s costume this year was Firestar from the book series).

In the stories, cats train to become warriors who hunt for food and defend their clans. After an apprenticeship they must complete an assessment and if successful they have a formal ceremony.

Heather received a letter inviting her to take her Warrior Assessment which would challenge the five essential skills of a warrior: Smell, Sight, Tracking, Hearing, and Touch.

Her first trial (scent) required matching each scent-marked name to the appropriate cat. The cats were under glasses to help isolate their scents. I found a simple cat model online, modified it to have an empty space inside with holes through the back and then filled them with smelly things: cinnamon, vinegar, liquid smoke, cologne, and lavender oil. It worked pretty well, though oddly, the vinegar had no smell when she played the game just a few hours after prepping them.

Correctly identifying the cats revealed the code to the cryptex needed to begin the second trial (sight). I used the same cat model, but scaled it down to about an inch tall and printed cats in four colors. She had to find all ten hidden around the house and the number of cats in each color provided the combination to the lock for the third trial (tracking).

The trial of tracking required following a prey’s path through the backyard without getting lost until she caught up with the prey and obtained the code to the fourth trial. This involved a string run all over the backyard in one continuous length with false leads crossing it and confusing the issue. Although she made a mistake early on, she made a countering mistake shortly after and ended up with the right mouse while skipping about half the path. The prey was a 3D-printed mouse I grabbed from online and modified to put text on the incorrect ones (“Try Again”, etc.) and the code to the next trial on the correct one.

The fourth trial was hearing. I had recorded the cats meowing as well as myself and Jess and created an audio file for each of us. She had to listen to each file and identify which creature was meowing. Heather found this quite amusing and aced it without issue. The correct identification of the meowers provided the code to the fifth and final trial.

Warriors are sworn to protect their clans and this can require sacrifice. To honor those sacrifices Heather needed to identify four veteran warriors who had been permanently injured serving the clan using only touch. I used the same cat model from before, but modified one to remove the tail, one to remove an ear, one to remove a foot, and one to have a deep scar down the side. I placed each one in a paper bag and she needed to reach in and determine which cat was which. The order of the cats provided the code to the final chest.

The treasure chest contained a letter of congratulations and direction to present herself to the clan leader for the official induction ceremony where she would set aside her apprentice name of Heatherpaw and receive her warrior name, Heatherstorm.

Once the ceremony was complete it was time to celebrate with gifts! She had a blast. Grinning so big she could hardly read the letters and notes out loud.

Then it was off to dinner at Chili’s and home again for cake–pumpkin chocolate-chip cake with cream cheese frosting.