Cute Kid Pix August 2026

More photos that didn't make their own post...

Our son played in his first chess tournament. He was nervous but excited. He wound up with three wins and one loss, so that was encouraging. Since it was his first tournament, he was in the "unranked" group for his age. He is interested in going to another one.

Contemplating his first move

At home, we introduced our godson and his brother to Gizmos, a fun tableau-building game where players are making a Rube Goldberg device to win a science fair. 

Contemplating my next move

We went out to lunch with some visiting friends but forgot to take a picture with them at the restaurant. We exchanged photos via cell phone.

Our half of the photo exchange

Our daughter went to visit her grandparents in Minnesota. They had her working on a deck out in the woods. With enough work, it will be a tree house, though that will require a few more trips.

Working in the projects

Our dance studio, That's Dancing, had a 1980s dance, so we dressed up a bit.

Not too dressed up

Our son had a birthday outing at Urban Air, an indoor trampoline and adventure park. One of their favorite things was the battle pit, with a narrow beam on which competitors fight it out. 

Ready to challenge the champ

Blocking

The climbing area was also very popular.

So many choices

He makes it to the top

A close up so you can see him

Going down is easier

High ropes action

Spider-time

Jump and duck activity

Back home, we had some more celebrating. One of his presents was a Super Mario Chess Set, which was fun to play with. Fortunately the pieces are labeled with which chess piece they are, so you don't accidentally play Peach as a queen. For some reason, Mario is the king and Luigi is the queen, not Peach. Peach is a bishop, which is also weird. At least Yoshi is the knight!

Contemplating his next move

I was running errands and ran in to the BWI Airport to get a virtual geocache. I've been meaning to get it done every time we go to the airport, but we are always in a rush to get through security or to get home. The blue crab is a Maryland mascot and the sculpture has been there for a long time.

Glass sculpture and me

Congress of Gamers Spring 2026

I attended one of the local board game conventions I've been thinking about going to for years. The Congress of Gamers provides a variety of services to the DC area gaming community. They have a list of game stores, calendars of local gaming events (meetups and conventions), and advice on managing or liquidating large game collections. The main thing they do is host board game conventions. Each year, they have three convention weekends in Rockville. They also organize a summer cruise from Baltimore. I went to the Spring 2026 convention.

The main gaming area

I got there at opening time since I was selling games at the auction store. Participants sign up ahead of time to sell items they no longer want. Sellers choose three different prices for each game and as the day goes by, the price drops two times. I sold half of what I offered, so I am happy with how it turned out. I only bought one game from the store at the end of the day, so I paid the cheapest price on Gutenberg. 

After I put my games in the auction store room, I went to one of the other rooms to play games. I saw another guy who wasn't playing and struck up a conversation. We decided to try out Bohnaza, a bean growing and selling game. After reading through the rules, it seemed a little complicated to start off with, so we switched to Gizmos, which I have played many times. Another fellow joined us and we had a good time.

We put the game back and started looking at the convention library shelves again. An organizer came up and asked if we'd be interested in a learning game about to be taught in the main room. Challengers is an award-winning game where players manage a small deck of cards. The cards represent a team playing Capture the Flag. Two players fight it out each round, shuffling their decks and playing the cards. The first player plays their first card and captures the flag regardless of the card. The next player has to play cards until their point value is equal to or greater than their opponent's card. That player then captures the flag and the opponent's card goes on "the bench." The winner's last card becomes his "flag holder" card (the rest of the cards are tucked underneath it) and the first player plays cards until his total is bigger than that single card. Then the flag moves back and the flag holder and any cards under him are benched. The round ends when one player runs out of cards or has too many benched cards. In the next round, players switch who they are playing against and have another go.

The twist is each round (including the first) the players draw five cards from another set of cards and add one or two to their deck. Play decks become asymmetrical, providing drama and excitement. The new cards might have higher numbers or special powers that make the game more exciting (and hopefully winnable).

Challengers card with list of opponents and the starting deck

Too many on the bench!

It was fun to play even if I did not do very well. It seems like a game that needs a lot of players (at least an even number). The play is not too complicated, the toughest part is choosing what cards to add to your deck. Players have the option of shedding cards too, though giving up too many means losing rounds by running out of cards.

Once that was done, I wandered around a bit and then played a blinged-out version of Wingspan. The owner (people bring their own games to the convention often) bought an insert to organize the components and painted some of the inserts. He also met designer Elizabeth Hargraves, who signed the back of the birdfeeder dice tower! 

Blinged-out Wingspan

We played with the hummingbird expansion, which adds a bit of complication. A separate board keeps track of hummingbirds coming and going to the three habitats. They provide bonuses (extra food, eggs, etc.) and also move tokens on an additional scoring track.

Hummingbird expansion bits

In the picture above, you can see that my player cubes were bald eagles! The guy really went all out making his game extra-nice.

We played through and I came in second, though I thought I did worse. The game has so many sources of victory points that tracking the scores is hard. Other players excelled at getting eggs and food but I had plenty of nectar bonuses and high-value birds.

My final habitats

The whole table

It was a lot of fun. After that, I went to the auction store for the last minute sales. Then I took my purchase to the car. I had a hard time finding another game. At this point, a lot of the tournament games were going, which I was not interested in. They had a room for unpublished games, where a designer would let players try out their games to get feedback. It did not look like any designers showed up for that. I wound up hanging around until the store closed. I picked up my leftover games and the payout for the ones that sold. Then I headed home.

The convention continued on Sunday but we had too many home obligations for me to return. That's the trouble with going to local conventions, all your other obligations are still around to distract you!