End of July...WOW, what a month...

 Wow, July is gone already, and oddly enough we only have about 4 1/2 months left until Christmas!

The month was busy for me, and I hope you too, (in a good way). 

Earlier in the month, we had suddenly surprised by water in our basement, (per previous post), and a quick cleanup, allowed us to get things eventually back on track. The large rug found a new spot for my wife's sewing room up in the attic, but I am going to get y'all up to date on what is going on.

GAME ROOM BACK IN ORDER...

We did a thorough check for water damage. We found that there has been some in the past, and like I said previously, this isn't a rare thing, (our neighbors also get it). Fortunately we have a drainage system built in to handle it and do not need or require sump pumps, etc.  To keep things from the onset of mold and mildew, I went ahead and did the bleach spray thing to the areas around the bottom of the wall.

After that it was just a little light cleaning and then straightening up, (which mean putting all the "stuff" back), and the game room was back in order. And what was better was that the tables were clean, empty, and ready for the next big surprise.

From this:

Back to this: (minus the rug)...

REAPER BONES V KICKSTARTER ARRIVES!!!

Reaper in it's own form of evilness, went through the wringer for getting their shipments of Bones V Kickstarter out. I applaud Reaper tremendously as they did a wonderful and excellent job of providing up to date info on the locations and statuses of their containers. 

I was in Wave 7 so my time was "soon". As the initial release date of April was pushed back to late June and then early-mid July, I was patient.

But also impatient, once the waves started coming out...

So then I got the "email"....

(JOY!!!! So much goodness is on it's way!!!....)

And the day came and I kept track of the UPS truck, and then went outside and waited...

(Waaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiitttttt.....for it.....)

And then suddenly, like a brown bolt of quasi-lightning in a sorta clear, blue, sky; the familiar sight of the UPS truck as it comes into view! The all too familiar sound of the overheating, overworked, underpowered Cummings diesel engine grinding gears as it announces to the world that much joy will be had!

(I must admit I may have made some chortling sounds when I saw it...)

And then it stopped right across the street.....

The UPS guy came out with two massive boxes and I thanked him and shook his hand after he placed them on my front porch...

(Mission accomplished. Reaper Bones V Kickstarter Wave 7 for me has been fulfilled...)

I took the boxes and carried them into the house and put them on the dining room table and got something nice and cold to drink...

(These boxes are big!...)

Eventually they found their ways down to my game room and were opened and all of their precious contents taken out for me to examine, enjoy, and revel in.

The first box I opened up was the long one. This held the pirate ship "Sophie's Revenge"...

(Great Googly Moogly! This thing is huge!!!! Notice the Reaper figure "Sir Forscale" in front of the box to give you an idea of it's size...)

Make no mistake. This is a HUGE model that Reaper put out.

It's kind of daunting to see this thing, and I don't think that I am currently up to it to get it done.

And then it was time to check in the other box!

Let's see what we have here.....

(Looks like a lot of swag, just have to get the printed stuff out of the way...)

(Oooooohhhh....lots o' treasure here! Let's get it all on the table and see our loot haul!)

So I put it on the table...

Great Googly Moogly....

(This was the amount of figures added to my collection, courtesy of Reaper Bones V KS. TBH, it wasn't as large as some of the purchases by other people that I saw on FB, but still. BTW...the root beer didn't come with it, and in front of the bottle is "Sir Forscale" to give a scale in comparison...)

But that was not all....

So a day or so later, I get this message in my email....

(Huh???....)

Curious and confused, I now checked the order and pulled up the invoice...

Sure enough there was an invoice for the figures that I had ordered...

Problem was, was that I didn't remember ordering these...

So I went back and checked and *sigh*, indeed I did...

It's embarrassing to be getting orders for figures you don't remember making...

(Here is the invoice to the "Mystery Order")...

So the box showed up on time, and I opened it...

Man there was a LOT of wrapping.

(Such a big box and so much wrapping for small minis...)

I remembered that in order to rebuild my fantasy figure collection, I needed to start with some basic monsters and go from there. And there were some human figures I needed to get also.

So I laid it all out.

(Sigh...more figures for the paint pile...)

But I did get lucky and well....got a couple of pre-paints from WizKids...

(WizKids Rot Grubs)...

And a poorly painted Giant Weasel...

(Yeah I am gonna need to do some work on this one...)

And finally AFTER a bout of emails with WizKids Customer service, (a story which I won't go into here), I finally got the last figure of my order with them.

The figure was originally for my wife's cleric character in our D&D campaign.

(I won't lie. This is a nice package of figures...)

And then, suddenly it was time to game!

D&D SATURDAY!!!

So after a long absence, it was time for our D&D campaign to get back into full swing! 

We were short one player so he was on "guard" at the front door. And our party continued to explore the "haunted" house.

During the evening they had two major combats, (which they won), found a piece of jewelry, a liquid in a glass and corked vial, a mushroom circle growing out of the floor in a room, a nicely cut purple gemstone....

Oh...and they found a ring.

Silver with a small black stone set in it. The ring was then the subject of much discussion among the party members, and a small bit of mistrust has come about.

(Old school gaming...)

But then we had to stop for dinner...

So it was without further eloquence that some of us slipped off and took a walk 4 blocks up the street to the hotdog festival...

Yes...a wiener fest...

All the meet you could stick in your mouth...and then some!

(Mmmmm....bratwurst...)

So after getting some brats, we also picked up some good old Indiana Funnel Cake.

Happy is the DM with fresh funnel cake!

(Delicious!)

A WONDERFUL GIFT...

One of the members of our gaming group knows that I am sucker for minis and mini rules, (historical). Thus when he showed up on Saturday he gave me a spare copy of his "Black Powder" rules.

I was very honored and touched. I had wanted a copy of these for a while, but had never gotten around to getting them.

Without naming names, I say "Thank you good sir!"

(A wonderful gift for me from a wonderful person...)

There is so much more that I could be writing about right now, but I think that due to the amount of pics and size of this entry, I shall close it. Perhaps I will come back and add more to what has been going on. However, in closing I would like to thank my D&D group for all the wonderful times we are having, as well, as the friendship, fun, and the proof here that you and your gaming group can do a lot more together, and develop and build strong friendships that will endure the test of time.

More to come!