Genevieve and Chris Visit

We had visitors arrive Friday night! It was a guild gathering! 

Shane was so absorbed in Sim City he didn't realize they were inside and talking until I opened his door.

Gen and Chris brought their cats, Ollie and Lille, with them this time. Ollie is on cancer meds, so they couldn't leave them behind. We parked the cats in the guest bedroom (and learned later on that when Ollie takes a dump you can smell it all the way down the hall through a closed door!).

Carrie and Shane were happy to show Gen and Chris our new cat and horses. They'd been to the house, but not post-ponies.

Everyone crowded into the tack room together. Happy hopped up on everyone she could. I slid out after the picture, because allergies.

It was a weekend of food and games. Soccer was over, TKD was closed, and a lot of Shane's friends were travelling. We were bound to the house due to animals, so Shane got more electronics than usual.

The adults played a chunk of WoW when it was our turn, but everyone humored me with one board game. Carrie even blinged out Chris' character by gluing on some accessories!

Alas, the chores don't stop just because there's company. Carrie and I were out twice a day every day. Shane generally stayed inside and kept the company company.

There was some drama in the horse word. Nibs has continuously been aggressive towards the other mares. They're fine 95% of the time, but the other 5% could have been dangerous. Carrie and I talked it over and she separated Nibs from Annie and Maddy.

That put Nibs in the dry lot and we learned something else: Nibs was in heat.

Nibs calmed down the aggression and amped up the squirting and courting once she was closer to Sam.

Despite being the victim, Annie seemed to really miss having Nibs in the same pasture. She kept standing at the fence line.

Maddy trotted off and ate hay. Little fazes her.

She'd check in, too, though. The mares all seemed to miss Nibs even if they didn't miss being chased around.

Carrie went to run some errands, so I enlisted Chris and Shane to help with some poop busting.

They tore around the field while I handled other horse chores.

'Tore' was a deliberate choice of verbs. When Carrie came home, she was upset and worried that the wet ground allowed for pasture grass to be torn up (I'd told Chris, "Have fun," so it's not like I said to go slow).

Was it?

The jury is still out. You could definitely see where Chris had driven the day of, but over a week later it basically looks normal. The real test will be how the field looks when it's growing season.

Everyone was tuckered out by Sunday afternoon.

That gave Shane a chance to play around on a monk Carrie made for him in WoW.

Chris, Genevieve, Ollie, and Lillie packed up and we said our goodbyes as the sun headed below the horizon. Everyone had work and school come the sunrise. It was great to have visitors when we were homebound for the break.

World of Warcraft

WoW has stuck around. It's been hot and cold. Carrie played more than me whenever she was stuck on hold with distributors, etc. I enjoyed leveling and exploring, but once that was done I only logged on when there was something new or I was needed for something. I didn't even log in some months, and thought about cancelling.

The situation has changed, though.

Right now, we're playing two to four nights a week. Everyone hops on between 8 and 9 PM and we play for a couple of hours give or take. Shane's usually earned electronics by then, so he's on Pokemon and I hop up to put him to bed at 9 PM.

It started easily enough.

Carrie, Genevieve, Chris, and I tried to do a Mythic+ dungeon as a foursome and failed (It's typically done with a 5 person team). They're all in to collecting and gearing up. I have no interest save helping them. But running challenges? That seemed more fun to me.

Or it would have been if we had five players. We seemed to be perma-capped at four. We didn't know anyone else who played and who'd want to be #5 with a pair of married couples?

And then Bill showed an interest.

I had been playing a game a couple of times a week with Bill, John, and Dan. Dan moved to Vegas. John lost interest. Bill and I were still interested, but frequently busy. The game itself wasn't enough to hold our attention, either. It had been running as a group of four that made the magic happen.

WoW classic came out around then. Bill and I had played for a few months nearly 15 years ago. Carrie and I tried it out and I related the experience to Bill.

Nostalgia kicked in.

Bill decided to do a free trial and things changed. Carrie was thrilled and offered to help fly him around and smite anything that bothered him. We tried to get John to play, but he wasn't interested. Bill wanted to run around more with us, so he upgraded his account which gave him a level boost. We introduced him to Gen and Chris, he joined the guild, and everyone got bit by the mythic+ bug.

We had our five! That gave us a chance at running mythic dungeons. Everyone was hooked and Carrie and Gen started making plans to meet on certain nights. Everyone helped Bill here and there when he needed it to get him up to speed.

Ironically, around this time Carrie made a new friend online, Emily. Emily was in college in NC and played the same type of character as Carrie. Carrie and Emily had the best gear in the group and Carrie invited her to join us on a run Bill wasn't big enough for yet.

Our too small group of 4 changed to a too large group of 6.

Thankfully, it's worked out most nights. There have been a few times everyone was on and ready, but there were only five slots and someone was temporarily left out. Chris is the healer and I'm the tank, so we're required for each run. I would be willing to bow out, but that would be like playing soccer without a goalie or football without a defensive line. Gen, Emily, Bill, and Carrie are the four DPS trying to fill three slots.

I wrote a lot more about that than I planned. Just feeling wordy, I guess.

TLDR; Bill started to play WoW. It's more fun now. We met another friend and we're playing several nights a week which is much cheaper than eating out.

Labor Day Farewell

Monday came and it was great to be off work. However, it came to an end. Gen and Chris needed to get back to their cats (one with cancer) and jobs. We needed to get ready to face our week.

It rained before they left and there was a rainbow!

Shane was saying he already missed them before they left.

Shane would love to have visitors 24/7.....and honestly, I probably wouldn't mind either as long as they didn't drive Carrie crazy.

Guild Timewalk Weekend - WoW's 14th Anniversary

Genevieve and Chris came to town for a nerd weekend! They all wanted to run a raid and several dungeons. I'm the tank, so I was enlisted. Carrie stocked up on food from Costco and Shane went to Ninja Night at TKD on Saturday to give us almost five hours of adults only time to play!

Gen and Chris laughed as they presented me with a Scottish bull! They'd seen it in gift shop and thought of us.

The Scottish part makes sense if you know about my kilt. The bull is because in the game I'm a Tauren Paladin (AKA - A bull wearing plate armor). I discovered the command to moo in game.

We're a small guild of four. Carrie is a hunter and our ranged DPS. Gen prefers to play a rogue for melee DPS and Chris is a priest and our healer.

It was fun, but I definitely got video gamed out! The others probably could have kept going.