I had Younger Nephew over for a nice long gaming session today. I picked him up from his house, and he spent most of the half hour drive explaining to me that he knew that there had to be a "big plot twist" coming in Mass Effect 3, and speculating what it would be. Some ideas: We would discover some Collectors were still around, and they would help ( Read more... )

Checking my past journal entries, I see that Younger Nephew and I began playing Mass Effect 2 in earnest on January 23, 2017. Yesterday afternoon, we finished the game. There was much rejoicing ( Read more... )

Played Mass Effect 2 with Younger Nephew today. We're getting close to finishing it. I'm going to have to decide what to try him on next. Mass Effect 3 is probably inevitable, but I understand the ending is disappointing. Then again, Younger Nephew might not care provided that there are suitably epic explosions ( Read more... )

Youngest Niece, who is six, has noticed that Younger Nephew gets to hang out with me and play video games, so she asked if she could hang out with me and play video games ( Read more... )

Played Mass Effect 2 with Younger Nephew today. He seems to be grasping more of the larger storyline, and is also pausing more frequently to make comments about the plot and the characters ( Read more... )

I spent the afternoon yesterday playing Mass Effect 2 with Younger Nephew, or, since Mass Effect 2 is a single-player game, coaching him through playing Mass Effect 2. (Younger Nephew's most frequent commentary besides, "This game is really fun!" was, "I wish it had a multiplayer mode!". Do any of the Mass Effect games have a coop mode? Or are ( Read more... )

I think Younger Nephew and I have been sporadically playing Lego Star Wars II together for something like 4 years now. We've finally started to make progress on the story line in a serious way recently. Today we completed the entirety of Episode V. I might have to get some new games soon ( Read more... )

I played video games with Younger Nephew yesterday. He gets more fun to hang out with all the time. He's still very much a strong-willed kid, but he's learning to put a layer of social polish on it. For example, now when he wants to make sure I'm paying attention to something, he says, "Aunt Wendy, I think you're really going to want to see this ( Read more... )

I drove Older Nephew over to his rehearsal for a school play this afternoon. Apparently he is playing Spiderman in a play about pirates? (School plays seem more interesting these days than I remember them being than I was a kid ( Read more... )

Took my nephews climbing yesterday at The Peak of Fremont with some friends of mine and their kids. The Peak is a pretty cool little climbing gym - notably, it has 9 auto-belay routes, which is handy if you're short of belayers. (We had 6 kids and 5 adults, two of whom could belay, so the auto-belay was kind of a necessity ( Read more... )