World of Warcraft

I've been playing World of Warcraft since December 2004. Not the entire 12 years that the game's been out mind you. But off and on whenever I felt like wasting hours of my life. I've enjoyed the game immensely, however I can't say I'm happy I spent so much of my time piddling my life away playing WoW over the last twelve years. That's what the game does though, it addicts you and you really have no choice but to play, especially if your friends are playing at the same time as you. It's quite enjoyable playing with people you know because you can get on Teamspeak and talk with each other as if they were in the same room as you. I always played with my husband though so I didn't really need anyone else, except well maybe when he was at work. All in all, if I could do it over again maybe I would of never played at all or maybe I could of spent less time playing the game and more time doing something else I loved, even if it was spent playing other computer games. Ah well, I have good memories from playing and five level 100s to show for it. 

One of my first characters and my main, my level 100 Warlock, Carmody

The first character I ever got to max level in vanilla WoW, my level 100 Rogue, Crix

My main for several expansions, my level 100 Boomkin druid, Sól

My Elemental Shaman has always been a lot of fun to play, level 100 Thesk

And finally just for shits and giggles my level 100 Frost Deathknight, Abrielle

Plants vs. Zombies

I've loved PvZ since it first came out in the summer of 2009. I like everything Zombie especially when it pertains to killing them. So I really enjoyed playing Plants vs. Zombies. I've beaten Adventure mode numerous times and played all the mini and strategy games. 

While waiting for PvZ 2 to be released I discovered Plants vs. Zombies Adventures on Facebook. I've been playing it for a few weeks now and I really enjoy it. You get a town which you can upgrade and decorate just like any of the other social network simulation games on Facebook. You grow your plants in town and they all have different timers. So you just plant the ones with the longest timers just before bed. You occasionally get waves of Zombies in town but they're very easy to fend off because you get to set up a defense ahead of time. While in the different places you travel to and play you have to set up your plants per level and they aren't reusable whether you win or lose, so that's kind of a bummer. As you get through more levels you unlock different lots and your town expands. Here's my town so far-

The other night while looking up PvZ 2 I stumbled upon a video posted recently on Youtube from this year's E3 conference. It was about another upcoming game from PopCap entitled Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jYjUrHOY7A4 Wowza!! From the video it looks like a Call of Duty or Battlefield type PvZ game. It's a third person action game which allows up to four people in multiplayer co-op.  It looks amazing! It's supposed to come out for Xbox first, then for PC. No idea on a release date yet, but at least I have PvZ Adventures until it does come out, well until I finish it at least. 

My Tattoos

My latest tattoo that I got for my 30th Birthday 

9th tattoo, crown, string of pearls and diamonds. Right foot. (Freshly Inked)

8th tattoo, anatomical heart with lock and keys. Right forearm.

7th tattoo, ambigram of my third son's name, Skylar. Left ankle.

 6th tattoo, traditional anchor with blue rose. Inner triceps on left arm.

 5th tattoo, ambigram of my second son's name, Rylan. Right wrist. 

 4th tattoo, ambigram of my first son's name, Noah. Left wrist.

3rd tattoo, Japanese Cherry Blossoms. Back of left leg. 

 2nd tattoo, Lion of Judah. Upper right arm

First tattoo, an ornate cross with a rose. Right leg.

My cousin Kyle who works at Sketches Tattoo in Glendale, AZ has done all but my first two tats. He does amazing work. You can check him out on Facebook or the shop's website here, http://www.sketchestattoo.net/

New Page Header

I was getting bored of the old one so I decided to make a new one today. I wanted to use a few of my favorite female game characters that I've played through the years. First one is Maya the Siren from Borderlands II. Loved Borderlands I and II, beat them both and I played the sirens in both the games as well. Second character is of course Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. I've always thought Lara was a cool character. She's gorgeous, has a ton of money, has a title, and can kick some serious ass. Third character is Chell from Portal 1 and 2. I played and beat both Portal games. I absolutely loved both games, such a cool concept. Fourth we have Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series (the female version).  So yeah there you have it. My new page title graphic hope you like it.

Tea better than Paradise Bakery? I think so.

I bought this tea a few weeks ago from Trader Joes. I've never tried it before but I love their Jasmine Green Tea so I figured I'd try it. I love black tea so I was hoping I'd like Trader Joes Mango Black Tea. OMG! This stuff is amazeballs!! Occasionally when I'm at the mall I'll get a large mango tea from Paradise Bakery and for years now I've been looking for a similar tea to make at home. Well I think I finally found it. This stuff is just as good or better tasting. And since it only costs $1.99 a box which is about how much a large tea costs at Paradise Bakery I think we have a winner. I'm only sorry I bought one box of this stuff because I heard that it sells out all the time. I make mine by filling a large glass 3/4 full with ice and then I put one tagless teabag into my ekobrew cup brew it in my Keurig on the 8 oz. setting. It's so awesome that I can make a cup of refreshingly delicious mango black tea at home now. Woot, Go Trader Joes!

Christmas Pics

I know these are three months late but I still wanted to post them. Here's a few pics of the kids opening presents on Christmas day. I bought way too much stuff like always because I love watching the kids open gifts. I seriously have to buy less stuff this year though because the kids have way too many toys. We started a new tradition last year by making Prime Rib for Christmas dinner. The whole family enjoyed it so we'll probably be doing it again this year. Patrick also bought an 8 foot Christmas tree so looking forward to putting it up this year, that thing is freakin' massive. Defintely making Pat do most of the work though since he wanted it, ha. 

MorningStar Farms® veggie burgers

I recently tried a Bzz Agent Campaign for MorningStar Farms® original grillers veggie burgers. Patrick, my husband bought a new grill last year so we've been grilling pretty often. One night we decided to have the veggie burgers. Patrick's been on a health kick/diet for about a month now so he was up for trying them. I had my burger plain with ketchup like I've always eaten my burgers at home. I have to say I didn't really care for it, in my opinon it didn't taste at all like meat. On the other hand Patrick thought they were pretty good and he wants to have them again. I think I like beef too much to give it up for veggie even if it is just for one night a week or every once in awhile. For anyone whose into giving up meat one night a week or if you're a vegetarian I'd say try the burgers you'll probably like them. They're just not for me. 

Christmas Ornament Craftiness

I wanted to make sure and do plenty of Christmas crafts and activities with the kids this year, especially now that they're older and I can do more stuff with them. I saw a few craft posts on Pinterest about making Clay ornaments so I decided to give that a try. I bought Crayola Air-Dry Clay from Walmart and we began our fun. 

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The boys had a lot of fun using cookie cutters to make ornaments. They picked out what they wanted to use and then pressed the cookie cutter into the dough I had rolled out for them. We left them to dry for a few days and then we painted them with Crayola Washable No-drip Paint Brush Pens. 

It was the first time we used the paint pens and I have to say I really like them. The paint is in the pen and they dry pretty quickly, it is really more like a marker but the kids enjoyed thinking they were painting. If the boys want to I'd like to make ornaments with them every year if we can. Hopefully the ornaments will last because they seemed pretty fragile. Maybe we'll try using the clay you bake in the oven next time. 

How I Became a Gamer

Parsec (1982)

I've been playing PC games since my dad bought a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computer back in the 80s. Granted those games were nothing like the PC games we have nowadays, nevertheless they were pretty decent at the time. I remember games like Alpine and Parsec, wow check out those graphics, amazing!

Alpiner (1982)

Lol, no really. That's all we had until my Dad got a Sega Master System then we had games like Phantasy Star, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, California Games and one of my favorites Psycho Fox.

Phantasy Star (1987)

Alex Kidd in Miracle World (1986)

California Games (1987)

Psycho Fox (1989)

My brother and I have a lot of great memories playing those games. Some of them were even 2-player. None were cooperative though, that kind of play didn't come till a bit later. For Christmas one year in the early 90s my brother and I received a brand new Super Nintendo System with Super Mario World from our Uncle. Best gift ever! Super Mario World quickly became one of our favorite games, we both got many hours of play out of that game. Still to this day, I think fondly of Super Mario World. 

Super Mario World (1990)

The graphics still look pretty good. I guess I could always get an emulator and play it again. 

After our Super Nintendo we got into computer gaming. I remember going with my parents to a department store in a mall close to our home and buying an IBM. Our first "real" computer. Later on my Dad started building systems for us. All four of us ended up having one. The first real first-person shooter I played was Wolfenstein 3D. Wow I have to say those graphics are pretty horrible. After that I would watch my cousins play Quake when we visited them during the holidays. 

Wolfenstein 3d (1992) 

 Our first taste of great graphics came when my dad bought Myst from Compusa. We would sit next to him and watch him play what we thought at the time was the coolest game ever. Gadgets to click, puzzles to solve, beautiful landscapes to explore, what's not to like? 

Myst (1994)

Sure I had games like Carmen Sandiego and The Oregon Trail but those were child's play, literally. Games that really made us into gamers were ones like Fallout, Rainbow Six, Half-life, and Everquest.

Fallout (1997)

Rainbow Six (1997)

Half-Life (1998)

Everquest (1999)

That screenshot from Everquest is actually mine. For some reason I still have all my screenshots from EQ on my computer. That was my Barbarian Shaman named Bhreac Zudora. Aww, I have fond memories of fighting Hill Giants and ending up selecting myself instead of the giant and I rooted myself. I was so mad because I couldn't run away when I needed to. I remember all the corpse runs, that was fun. Because in that game if you died all your crap would be stuck on your corpse wherever you had died and you would have to run back from where you were bound and then you'd usually be naked trying to not get murdered by mobs on your way back to your corpse. Oh you'd also lose experience too every time you died, lame. But then again it was either Ultimate Online or Everquest and we chose Everquest. 

There's actually a butt load of more games in between everything that I listed that we played but they're way too numerous to list and it would take all day so I'm just going to highlight my favorites. 

With new graphic systems coming out on a regular basis, new genres were born which led to some great games. Fallout 2, Darkstone, The Longest Journey, System Shock 2, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Unreal Tournament, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Battlefield 1942 are just a few that come to mind. 

Fallout 2 (1998)

Darkstone (1999)

The Longest Journey (1999)

System Shock (1999)

Unreal Tournament (1999)

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)

Elder Scroll III: Morrowind (2002)

Battlefield 1942 (2002)

Wow, it looks like 1999 and 2002 were good years for computer games. In 2003 I met my future husband. We both worked in the same mall, I was downstairs he was upstairs at the same end. What hit it off was that we both had been playing Battlefield 1942 and we ended up talking about it. We started dating after that, we mostly played computer games together and watched movies. However nine and a half years later, after three kids, two cars and a mortgage, we're still playing games together. 

Since that time we've played all kinds of games, some were good, some were bad, some horrible. But I've had a great time playing each and every one and I'll still be playing them till I'm not able to. In my twenty-something years of gaming I don't regret the time spent playing all those games, I have a lot of awesome memories from them. Our oldest son who is four now has been playing pc games since he was three and he is pretty incredible. Our child prodigy. I know he has many years of great gaming ahead of him. 

Here's to the next generation of games and gamers, may your spawn times be short, your adds be few, your leveling be quick, your loot be plenty and may lag never get the best of your gaming experience.