Happiness 15 years on

What makes you happy? What makes you smile, gives you the warm feeling inside that reflects beaming from your insides out? For me it is celebrating success either my own or that of friends, family, colleagues... Love too, young or old, the love of a friend or that of a parent for a child, the true love of soul mates just happy being with each other...

Last night I was beaming with that happiness as my beautiful, darling wife and I renewed our vows after 15 years of marriage. In a wonderful twist my gorgeous girl had an amazing vision of inviting girls to attend our celebration in their wedding dresses or bridesmaid dresses... A room full of brides in white... In an even bigger twist we had white dresses but not all of them were brides...

My eyes last night were only for one in white though whose dazzling smile lit up the room all night long, just as beautiful as the day we were wed. Fifteen years on our lives have changed somewhat but nothing will change how we feel for each other.

We have many people to thank for making last night such a special one... From my wife's sister and her husband who thought we would be good together to the local cake designer who whipped up a delicious combination of yummy mud cake and delightful cupcakes (some that tasted like Christmas) to the local Club staff who made our night such a stress free breeze... So many friends and family to thank for coming along and joining us... Finally a specially thank you to my sweet angel for all the stress, preparation and for just being my amazing and beautiful girl... I'm still smiling...

Blog number 200... Knights and VR rule on a very windy day at Mannum

What a wonderful weekend... Saturday saw a trip up to Woodside where my wife's mum and dad have settled to be closer to family. It is a beautiful new house they now have, easier to manage and is looking more and more like their home the more moving boxes are emptied... It was great to be able to help out with tuning the TV and shifting some plants round the back... Tired but happy trip back to Murray Bridge just in time to join my brother-in-law for his boardgames night... This was an opportunity to try my luck at a few unusual boardgames that I had not played in a while. Ben has a few of the classic family games (like Cludeo and Monopoly) but also has a quite expansive collection of other titles (classics as well as the unusual) so a games night at the Crook house is always loads of fun. My luck was not found in the universe this time with me hanging on to a second place while almost losing all my colonies... I did come away with a win though with a combination of dinosaurs and werewolves in a faction card game called SMASH-UP... In between the games there was time to sneak in a cuddle with my youngest niece, the extremely cute Olivia... Based on last night alone I would say Uncle Tim is either boring or very comfortable. I had the knack to put sleepy, grumpy Olivia off to the land of nod... A little rocking and a bit of humming and she was out like a light.

Today was another awesome catch up with family Crook as we spread our wings and hitched a ride with the blustery wind all the way to Mannum (approx. 30 minutes from Murray Bridge). Mannum is another township located on the River Murray, smaller than Murray Bridge, Mannum has between 2,000 and 3,000 people. This Sunday so happened to be the date of a Gaming Expo at the Mannnum Showgrounds, a display of all things medieval, computer/console/board game related and film related. The sword play tournament was amazing to witness (those guys dressed as knights fight hard and fierce) and the Virtual Reality set up was pretty cool too... I beat my son at the old NBA arcade game but lost out at Super Smash-Bros... Thanks as well to the bloke who gave me the complete and utter back story of his Warhammer 40K army displayed in all its glory. Looks like a fun two and a half to three hours of tough battling but too costly for me... With the number of new boardgames I saw today that I now want to play I don't think I'll ever get the time for Warhammer even if I ever did find the extra cash to invest... One can only dream... Thanks to my mate Benny and his introducing me to the Warhammer novels I could hold my own with this expert as he explained the game and his combination of differing factions... His fluff (army's back story) was an interesting one and helped to pass the time while I waited for Master 12 to finish his VR...

All in all a great family weekend... What a way to round off my first 200 posts...