Being Sick SUCKS

Holy man, let me tell you guys, being sick SUCKS. It's hard to get a good night's sleep, difficult to get up in the morning with your perfectly wide-awake child, and the worst part is keeping yourself up and motivated to do things you know need to be done. Even washing the dishes feels nearly impossible when sick.

And it's all thanks to this little thing here:

I have never been sick so much in my life since Isabelle started going to daycare and now she happily brings home every bit of germs and sickness that she can and spews it everywhere either by coughing all over things, or in my face, or by putting her mouth all over the stuff that we touch all the time. On the bright side... I SHOULD (in theory) become a healthier person with her strengthening my immune system. On the other hand, I still have this cough that I haven't been able to get rid of since... I don't really remember anymore, it's been more months than I can think of. I just can't seem to stop coughing ALL THE TIME. Now there's probably something to do with "Kyle needs to drink more healthy liquid water with no sugar in it..." Or.... Uhh..... No, that's probably something to do with it. IT'S A WORK IN PROGRESS!

If that wasn't bad enough, in all the kerfuffle my wife got sick as well. Now, Carley getting sick is something that happens from time to time and I'm quite used to taking care of her including the additional requests when she's not feeling well, but something about this sickness was a little bit different than usual. I just couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something wasn't quite right... is it true that she's really just that cranky and annoyed with everyone only because she's sick?

As it turns out we were hit with the unexpected inconvenience of Carley's doctor being away during the time when she needed to go in to renew her prescription for Concerta. If you don't know what Concerta is, it's a slow-release medication for ADHD which really helps her focus and not hate everybody. So because the doctor was away, we couldn't get her prescription renewed which meant she had to do without her medication for a week. Something we didn't expect which never occurred to use as a possibility is that she went through some withdrawal. As it turns out, taking Concerta daily doesn't make you think much about it other than notice how much it helps with day-to-day life, but quitting it cold-turkey actually causes a withdrawal period which would be similar (though likely not as bad) as quitting something like heroin so suddenly. Insane, right?

So needless to say, dear little Isabelle was happy as a clam the past week or so, Carley got sick and went through withdrawal which made her tired and want to stay in bed but also get out of the house because she couldn't stand anybody (while also needing to go out for a walk due to excessive energy levels), and I just held on to sanity while being sick and having to cater to the demands of two ladies who were so very in need... oh, and of course the dogs still needed to go out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in all day long again. No rest for the weary as they say.

Anywhos, now that I'm pretty sure I'm over the majority of being so very sick, and now that I've finished watching the Netflix show "Strong," I'm feeling much like I should start getting back into producing blog posts and new content to keep you all entertained. I have so much in my brain brain BRAIN, that I want to get out there and share with you all!

Keep an eye out for more stuff coming up very soon! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Mobile Game Review -- Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon - Idle Progression - 8/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?

Today I have another Idle Progression-type game for you called Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon. Now it's hard to get around the mass of Idle Progression games that exist on mobile devices, sure they're mostly all free so you could try them on your own... or you can take a a look at my experience to see whether or not your interest is great enough to skip the time cost altogether.

Gameplay:
As with all idle games there is an active and an idle portion of the game. The active part involves swiping across the screen to catch fish. Catching fish means you make money which can be used to buy upgrades which make fish worth more which means more money and so on and so forth.

Every so often you'll receive chests which may have money or.... emeralds in them (which is the second type of currency in the game), or there are of course quests which give rewards for performing tasks such as the above which is to acquire 40 upgrades which then gives 3 emeralds.

What are emeralds used for you ask? Emeralds are used for hiring employees which increase productivity both online and offline. How great is that? These employees can even be upgraded to be better by spending emeralds on them.

There is a fun little spinner in this game which gives you a free spin to get bonuses including increased income for a period of time which can be spun additionally by watching advertisements for even more bonuses.

What is the point of all of this? Well to earn experience of course which can be claimed by taking the action of going back to the start of the game from step one only earning 1% more income per point of experience and 100% more income per star... which is again gained by completing quests and things.

So at this point we've hit all the usual points of an idle game where you have regular income, alternate income, and a prestige-type thing which resets your progress so that you can get further into the game faster. Pretty straightforward.

There's a fun little difference in this game compared to others where there are boxes which float down every once in a while that have items within them. These items have different abilities including increasing fish value and even the ability to catch birds!


Graphics:
The artwork is nice on the eyes, very thematic showing wood, wind, water, and fish. It all makes sense when it comes to fish and fishing with nothing sorely out of place. My only "complaint" would be that there isn't much incentive to watch the screen because most of the time you're carelessly swiping back and forth or putting the phone down because it's another advertisement.

I will however take a quick moment to note that I LOVE that this game gives REAL incentive to watching advertisements. Normally an advertisement would be something you start and put the phone down for a minute just to get an x2 multiplier on your earnings which is... sort of a whatever kind of thing to do when it comes to money, but in Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon you get 10 Crowns every time you watch an ad which eventually levels up to get more upgrades. Finally a game that REALLY rewards you for watching advertisements!

Sound:
I've always enjoyed the sound of the ocean and birds (in this case seagulls), which is one of the reasons I really want to go back to Hawaii one day. On the other hand, the music got really old really fast. REALLY fast.


Replayability:
This is always the biggest point of a game is how long can you continue playing a game for? I did find Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon very fun, but as with all idle games, it tends to fall off after a while once you get over the honeymoon phase. Idle games will unfortunately never been in the hall of fame on my list of games because the gameplay never changes; it's a very short look of getting the game upgrades and performing the same actions, restarting for a higher multiplier, then doing it all again.


SUMMARY:
There are a few points which set this game apart from other idle-games I've played before:

1) If you enjoy fish, you'll enjoy this game.

2) It's not all about passive income, there's a lot of progress to be made when actively playing and the mechanic to doing so is all about swiping (which is much easier on the hands than tapping).

3) Advertisements that play into the future of the game.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, idle-games are not my favourite; they get old very fast. HOWEVER, in terms of what an idle-game is looking to do... Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon is a really good one with differences that make it interesting.

I have to knock off a couple points when an idle game stops progressing so quickly or runs out of things to do, so I will be giving Hooked Inc: Fisher Tycoon 8/10. It really is one of the better idle-games out there, but I still have a problem with a game that relies on watching advertisements to progress further into the game.

~ DaemonVirus

=== Mobile Game Review -- Crossy Road - Arcade Clicker - 4/10 ===

Today we take a look at the mobile game, Crossy Road. I've been a little busy recently with starting my new full-time job and still working on school at the same time... along with being a little bit sick. It can be quite difficult to have enough energy to keep going when there's so much going on, so sometimes I pick simpler and easier games to play in my spare time.

If you're looking for an simple game to pick up and play where you can learn to be better every time you play while being reminded of the good old days of playing Frogger back in 1981, this game is for you! The controls are really easy to learn, just tap on the screen and you hop forwards; moving to each side and backwards can be done by swiping in the proper direction; if you are faced with a solid object or any situation where hopping forward would block the character... you'd better figure out which way to swipe to fix that before hopping forward, otherwise you're not going to move anywhere at all.

Something I'm not really a fan of when trying to be awesome at a game is RANDOMNESS. Now of course randomness is important in the replayability of a game, but there's a level of randomness in some games which is just silly; I'm talking about the type where due to uncontrollable factors, you've run into an impossible to beat situation. Does that come up in this game? Yes... sometimes you end up stuck with no holes in traffic to pass through while the ever-moving camera swallows you up or forces you to jump to your death into oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, for the most part, this isn't too much of an issue. Because it's so easy to get into a new game and because many situations are avoidable if the player is able to think and react fast enough, I don't mind the amount of randomness in this Crossy Road.

Reasons to come back to this game and keep playing after having played for... a while? Challenges I suppose. I believe a new one starts every day or every few days where a preset character and level is put forth into the world for many players to attempt to see if they can be the best at getting the furthest into the level. Based on the player's rank at the end of the challenge, they are given some sort of reward such as a special character.

I really enjoy the fact that different characters in the game don't really have an effect on how the game is played. Different characters change the setting of the game and the aesthetics, but nothing changes other than that.

I suppose the real downside to this game... is that nothing really changes. Once you've figured out how to play it reasonably well... there isn't really much left to do. I mean hey, if you can consistently get to 200 hops, then you get to keep seeing pretty much the same 200 hop idea every single game you play. What happens when you get further than 200 hops? You see more... of the same... thing.

While I believe Crossy Road is probably a one-week game at best, there is one bonus thing that really truly made me want to play in the first place; they have a version of Crossy Road at Ruckers which is basically the same game without the ability to move side-to-side or backwards. Surely this results in more randomness than I am comfortable with seeing as the game makes its decisions to move to either side on its own, but there's still a chance to play really well and get really far into a level which results in quite a few tickets.

Verdict

Gameplay: Fun and easy to pick up, but the gameplay gets quite repetitive incredibly quickly.

Sound: The sounds a basically what you'd expect; sounds of traffic driving past and honking their horns, water rushing as you jump across logs, trains running across tracks right before your very eyes.... but no music.

Replayability: No game is EXACTLY the same twice... but after a few plays, there isn't much change to the game with each new play.

Bonus: There's a version of this game made for earning tickets at Ruckers. If it wasn't for the cost of buying all those tokens just to play the game this way, I would be playing it ALL THE TIME.

SCORE: After some consideration, I have decided to give Crossy road 2/5 because I was super excited about playing it after experiencing the arcade game at Ruckers... but then I quickly lost interest after only about a week of having it on my phone.


~ Kyle Welykholowa


Back to Game Reviews

Camping On The Beach At Lake Diefenbaker

A little over a week ago now we camped on the beach at Lake Diefenbaker with the dogs for the second time this year. This time we stayed for a little longer than one night; this time it was four days and three nights of lovely beach weather. What a dream it was out there... I can never get tired of spewing about how amazing it is to go outside in nature where there's next to no technology and nearly no people nearby at all.

During the last time we went camping we had borrowed a tent from my parents and during that time the zipper split and there was nothing we were able to do about it. So we decided to purchase our own tent online. This is the tent which arrived which was exactly what we were hoping for. We then proceeded to spray the tent with Camp Dry spray which is to help keep everything waterproof.

We started by parking a little bit closer to our little camp than last time which was up on a hill where we were able to take things down the hill and set up on the beach which was pretty pretty much out of sight from anywhere other than the water. The water level was a little higher than last time which also contributed to where we parked the car this time. We were able to set up our new tent in about five or ten minutes and from there everything else was a matter of sorting and finding places for things to go. Autumn follow me up and down the hill for most of the journey until she finally got tired and couldn't keep up with me.

Never have I seen the dogs so incredibly tired as I did on that trip. They were constantly running around and wrestling and chasing each other and anything you could possibly imagine to run themselves completely out of energy and then they would be so tired that they would sleep in the middle of the beach. I was incredibly surprised to find that they both managed to willingly step into the water at least once each. In fact, we were both very proud of Autumn for showing Furgle how to get around when he was stuck because he didn't want to get into the water and couldn't figure out on his own where to go next without getting wet.

Day 1: After getting everything set up and taking a rest for a while to enjoy the peace, quiet, and to rest my weary feet. We went on a journey through the water around the beach much farther than we had ever gone before. We saw absolutely beautiful sights and even got a video and some pictures without falling into the water or dropping our phones and wrecking everything. It was really quite a sight; I'll share the pictures and videos, but it simply won't do it justice. We found ANOTHER beach with not a soul on it which we wanted to continue exploring, but with only one pair of water shoes, we weren't able to continue any further without risking the health of our delicate feet.

Day 2: I woke up to a wonderfully quiet morning with no wind at all. Never have I seen a more calm body of water outside. I could have stayed there and stared out at the water forever, but eventually I pulled myself away from the amazing sight.

We finally REALLY got into the water and "swam". I still wasn't brave enough to go fully under water including my head, but I did make it to my lower chest and even managed to bring Furgle in as well where I learned that he's not too bad of a swimmer if he were only able to keep up his back end. We figure he would have a much easier time swimming and might even enjoy swimming if we were to get him a doggie life jacket. Autumn on the other hand is a fantastic swimmer and once she went into the water on her own and figured it's not so bad in there, she was in and out of the water like crazy as long as we were there too.

Day 3: This was the day all about walking around the nearby town or whatever you would call it. I'm pretty sure there isn't any kind of convenience store in the area, so what exactly you'd call it I"m not too sure. As with everything else in the area... it's absolutely beautiful there. Would I consider living there? ABSOLUTELY! Though... considering there doesn't appear to be a store in the area.... I'm not so sure it would be possible to live there during the winter unless you had the capacity to store A LOT of frozen and canned foods. It was on this day that we found out there's a public washroom in the park... huh... that would have been good to know a little sooner.

Perhaps this would be a good time to mention that we had come by the idea to go for a super long walk around the village area because the dogs had run away. I swear, you turn around and look the other way for a minute, and suddenly your four-legged furry friends are long-gone. This wasn't exactly unexpected either; they normally wander away down the beach or jump up the hill and explore up top until we call them back and then they come running. This time however, they didn't come running back; they were completely out of sight. I don't know if they honestly went exploring over the hill and continued on until finally they ran into people on the far other side of the golf course you have to pass to get to the village from where we were.... or if they saw a bird and chased it until they lost it and then saw people. Thankfully people are awesome and friendly and Carley's number is on Autumn's collar so the people who caught her gave us a call and let us know where to find them. It was after all of this and we had gotten back to our camp that we figured... why not go for a walk around the place and see what it's like here?

So other than the dogs running away for a little while, the whole trip was very awesome and super rewarding. We managed to make multiple fires using firewood and nearby dry grass as kindling as well as some firestarters. We cooked steaks, chicken nuggets, tomato soup, and of course we found the time to roast marshmallows over the fire. Let me just say, marshmallows over a fire is one of the absolute best things ever; what made it even better than usual was the fact that we had picked up some jumbo marshmallows. Normal-sized ones get that nice crispy outside and totally melt on the inside, which is of course pretty awesome... but these ones had an even better thing about them which was a gooey center which wasn't quite totally melted. BEST. MARSHMALLOWS. EVER.

Now I find myself getting ready to head out for ANOTHER camping trip. On one hand, sure I'll probably find some way to have fun out there, and on the other hand, I just want to spend some nice time at home for a while without feeling like I'm always just trying to keep up with the next thing that's coming up. Please please please oh world of mine... could you slow down just a bit after the upcoming wedding?

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Group Camping Trip =16=

Alright, get this... I'm going on a group camping trip; yeah, I know, that's insane. There's something weird that I think you all should know about me... I like being outside and enjoying the peace and quiet of nature.

Now I know what you're all thinking... "What kind of nerd are you to like going outside?" I know something must be wrong with me, but I'm not quite sure what. I mean, how can a person like me who enjoys sitting in a dark hole writing on a blog and making videos enjoy being OUTSIDE? This has unfortunately come up before due to our trips to Lake Diefenbaker where during our most recent trip up there we camped on the beach for a night.

Now not only Carley, but also some great friends of ours are dragging me out for a camping weekend with the children. I'm a little excited to get outside and chill for a few days without having to worry about keeping the house cleaning and feeding everybody food and everything else that comes with trying to get things done around the house. At the same time I'm a little scared to be spending so much time outside and away from the house. I know I can easily keep myself busy and find things to do away from home, but I do worry about people thinking that I'm no fun or weird in the out-of-doors.

The best part about it is that I know Carley will have an awesome time. She's been wanting to go camping pretty much ever since I met her and we just haven't had the chance to go out anywhere on our own due to me usually being busy (and totally not knowing anything about camping whatsoever). There has also been a bit of an issue

I expect Isabelle will also have a great time being outside and with other people; she seems to enjoy getting out of the house and being a social baby so she may just end up being a total gem the whole time we're out there.

Wish me luck everyone! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Camping For Nerds ===

     This is the story of camping for nerds. Last weekend we went on our first trip of the year out to our favourite spot at Lake Diefenbaker where we did a trial night of camping. Surprisingly, this went very well and I would like to go out again for a longer period of time.

     We could have gone for longer, but we had no idea what Autumn was going to be like as this was the first time she's been out on that type of trip with us. Furgle had a wonderful time which I think was even better than last time because he had someone of his own energy level to run around with instead of just following us the entire time. We also weren't really sure how Isabelle was going to handle sleeping over at my parents' house considering she hadn't stayed there for the night before (though I wasn't terribly concerned about that because she HAS stayed for the night away from us before).

     So what is this craziness all about? I know, I know... I'm a NERD! What is someone like me doing OUTSIDE in the FRESH AIR??? As it turns out, even though I really like being inside in a dark hole playing games and doing whatever with technology, I also really enjoy being outside in the calm fresh air. Do I like walking down the street with a bunch of cars racing past? It's alright, but not my favourite. What I REALLY like... is going outside somewhere nice and quiet and enjoying the peace. There's something about the lack of man-made sound that really gets to me for some reason; really makes me feel at peace to have that every once in a while. I would gladly spend an entire day wandering around in a place like that. This is why we need to go back again (even if the water still isn't warm enough to swim in) for a longer period of time. Like... maybe four days next time would be perfect.

     Sometimes I forget that there's always things going on at home. Unless I'm relaxing and reading a book while everybody else is sleeping, there's probably something going on. I almost always have music or a show playing in the background or off to the side of whatever I'm doing. So sometimes I find myself driving down the street without the radio on and the window down just because it's nice to have some kind of getaway from the constant noise. Maybe that's why I like hiking so much, because there's just the peace and quiet of wandering around in the nice weather... unless I feel like listening to music.

     We had a fantastic time out at the beach; our special beach. The first thing we did was set up a 10-man tent which was a little bit confusing at first, but once we realized what was going on, it was a pretty easy system to figure out. We had time to wander up and down the beach looking for interesting things and to gather "firewood". Everything was rather damp, but that didn't stop us from getting a fire started anyways. It wasn't any sort of large blazing conflagration, but we did get something self-sustaining and it felt like a nice accomplishment... and the marshmallows tasted great.

     I'm already looking forward to the next time we get to go out, though that unfortunately probably won't be until late July. I guess we'll just have to get out for some nearby hiking and picnics to hold us over until then.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Dark Reign - Game Review, Real Time Strategy - 10/10 ===

     Today I'm here to review Dark Reign: The Future Of War. This game is an oldie made back in the good old days of 1997. This game was one of the first RTS games which came out at around the same time as Command & Conquer and Warcraft II. Considering the age of this game, I'm not reviewing it completely as though it is a new game considering the age of the game; but even considering how the game has held up over the years, I think it's going pretty great.

     Many RTS games these days tend to have at least two types of resources to work with. One basic resource and one advanced resources with which to make stronger things or research new things with. Some have even more types of resources; Dark Reign has one... and a half. The most important resource in this game is water; the story goes that most of the water has been poisoned and now fresh spring water is a valuable resource. So you collect enough water until it gets launched off-world in exchange for credits which you use to spend on things. Easy enough, right?

     Now, why would I say there's a half of another resource? I say that because you also have to power your buildings using a resource known as Taelon. That sounds pretty important.... but if you have enough credits, then you can keep building new power plants to power your things without filling them up with Taelon because every power plant is already half full when it's completed.

     The campaign in this game I think is done wonderfully. There are 12 levels in total and you can play each one in control of either of the two factions in the game. That means there are technically 24 levels in total... but if you only want to play each level from one side, you only have to complete 12 of them to get to the final level in which you  play a "third" faction which has access to all units from both sides in the game.

     The two factions in the game as seen above, are the Freedom Guard, and the Imperium. As this is an early RTS game, the two sides really aren't very different. They have nearly the same tech tree with some differences in units, but for the most part, everything is quite similar even when you get down to the units available to each side. I could take some points off for this, but as it is quite early in the timeline of RTS games, this isn't a huge concern for me. The game seems pretty well balanced and I can see how it could be quite competitive as a result.

     So from me, Dark Reign will get a 10/10. If you haven't played this game but are a huge fan of the Real Time Strategy genre, then you have to pick this up from GOG and give it a try. This was and still is one of my favourite games of all time. Yeah, maybe I'm giving it a higher score than it deserves, but this truly is a wonderful game and you really should give it a try.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Road Trip To The Beach ===

     This past weekend we decided to go on a road trip to the beach. What a wonderful time we had! I won't tell you exactly where at the beach we went because I don't want to give away our special little place to everybody in the world, but I will tell you that there are many places along the coast of Lake Diefenbaker which are so calm and peaceful with nobody else around.

     I would love to post a bunch of pictures along with this post of our trip, but unlike last time when I proposed to Carley, I decided not to bring my phone with me this time. I'm pretty sure if I had brought my phone, I would have been worrying about what time it was and wanting to take all sorts of pictures and being distracted the whole time. So as it turns out, not bringing my phone was one of the best choices I could have made because it just made my trip all that much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise.

     Honestly, I would have loved to have stayed there even longer. The water was warmer than last time; still a little bit chilly, but I was able to wander around without my feet freezing off. I enjoyed there being nothing other than the sounds of the winds and the waves to listen to while I wandered around and looked at the beautiful landscapes. I don't think I can explain how amazing it feels to be there away from all the technology and people and everything stressful in the world. It's just nice to BE for a while out there.

     This time around we brought some company with us. Rather than only going with myself and Carley, we decided to invite Carley's sister Tori to come along. The extra company was quite nice to have an additional person to talk to and hang out with for a while. Tori is very much like myself and likes being away from all the people so the two of us can happily be around and enjoy the silence for quite some time. I think I have a greater capacity to enjoy being outside to take in the peace (though I do understand her want to be back home where all the rest of the fun is).

     There was another guest we decided to bring along this time as well. Our fantastic dog Furgle got to come along with us on his first road trip. I was incredibly concerned that he might just decide to go run off into the distance or find a person and chase them rather than listen to us, but as it turns out he's quite fun to have along in the wild. He listens pretty well and even pays attention to us rather than wandering off the whole time. Our sweet Furgle isn't the biggest fan of water, so he spent a lot of time standing on the edge of the dry land and whining at us because he couldn't reach us. Maybe we're cruel, but we made him join us in the water a bunch and learned that he can swim quite well when he must.

     I doubt we'll be able to go again this year, but maybe there'll be some time for us to go on a couple family hikes somewhere nearby in the Fall time. Here's hoping there are much more fun adventures for us to go on in the coming months.

~ Kyle Welykholowa ^_^

=== When Are The Ducks Coming? ===

     I know it's a little bit early to look forward to the ducks coming back, but I think we're looking forward to spending our second spring and summer in Moose jaw. One of our favourite things to do in the nice weather is feed the ducks all of our large supply of bread. The beautiful place in Moose Jaw known as Crescent Park is a lovely place with a man-made waterfall contraption which takes the water from the bottom of the park and pushes it out a waterfall at the top. Along this sort of man-made river quite a bit of wildlife has actually made their homes here including ducks, groundhogs, and even a beaver.

     As much of a homebody I tend to be, I do enjoy getting out for adventures and things sometimes. It'll be a little bit more difficult now with our baby in tow, but I'm sure we'll still manage anyways. I still have plans for us to get out and go on some hikes and things and get some nice fresh outside in our lungs. I know it's quite surprising for a person such as myself (who would generally much prefer to sit in a dark hole and play games rather than go on a road trip) to enjoy going outside on adventures. Who knows, maybe I'll let Carley take me camping one day?

     In the mean time, I think we'll just make more trips to the park and enjoy ourselves in the beautiful weather and throw pieces of bread at the birds. Now that I think about it though, we should make some more trips over to the dog park. Moose Jaw has a dog park split into a small dog side and a large dog side. We've driven by there before, but we haven't yet had a chance to go there on a nice day when there are other people there. I think it would be really good for Furgle to get some doggie socialization time.

     Now that I really think about it, it would be a great idea to get some active time in somehow. I haven't had much time to do anything besides work and be at home with the baby. I just found out that I'll be able to use an active reimbursement thinger from work to get a bicycle, so I'm thinking I'll do that next month if possible and then I'll bike around Moose Jaw whenever possible. I'm also thinking I need to get the DDR things hooked up for something a little more active I can do at home as well. Hmm... something to think about.

Bye everyone! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

We're In The Hospital Again.

     What better time than now to go ahead and make a new blog post while sitting in the hospital... again. It seems like this past month has been going from one place of sitting to the next, just waiting for our baby to get here. We've been in the hospital a couple times for various reasons which I've explained in previous posts, but now it seems as though the time may actually be upon us.

     As we speak, it doesn't seem as though Carley is actually in labour. She said she has felt abnormally wet all day and had to change a couple extra times, but we didn't come in here for that reason. Today, we came in because there was some blood and thought it would be a good idea to come make sure everything is alright. As it turns out, the strip they use to test for amniotic fluid has tested positive and so it seems like her water has broken in some way which is at the very least, causing her to leak.

     At this time, I don't exactly know what the plan is YET, but it sounds like they would plan to induce her either tonight or tomorrow. On one hand, I was really hoping for April 2nd, of a birth-date... mostly because I'm just not ready yet. Carley says she's mentally ready for this to happen, but I don't think I am. In all honesty, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be ready for it whether it would happen tonight or tomorrow, or a week from now. Obviously I want to be a good parent, but I'm just not sure how I feel about everything. I'm excited that we're about to have a child pretty soon, but there's also so much I feel like I want to do with my life that I just haven't quite had the chance to do yet.

     Thankfully, most of what I want to do with my life at this time has to do with blogging, streaming, and content production; all of which would be much more fun to do if I didn't also have to do school. I don't mind doing school, but it feels like the timing just ended up being a little bit off. I'm definitely going to finish everything; I just feel like it's been an uphill battle trying to keep up and on top of school while trying to not go insane at the same time. So then I have content production of various kinds which I find to be quite calming and relaxing. This is not only a fun hobby for me, but also the sort of pass-time which I believe I could still do even with a baby growing into a child in the future.

     I have already made $0.05 through my blog at this point which drives me to work harder and get more done. Some days it's really hard to not either be too tired or too lazy to want to do anything. The same thing goes for my homework really. If I keep at it, this sort of thing could one day become a huge success and really help to support me and my family.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to let me know all about them! I love getting your feedback and would love more ways to keep you all coming back! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Incoming Baby!

     You really don't realize how unprepared you are for an incoming baby to pop into your life until you end up in the hospital twice either thinking you're going into labour or thinking you may have to be induced if you've managed to hurt yourself. Let me just say, first of all... it's just not fun to sit in the hospital for four hours. Luckily, our lovely hospital in Moose Jaw gets us in and looked at nice and quickly and they have touch-screen TV things that make the stay so much nicer than every other trip we've ever made to the hospital in Regina.

     Recently we've been into the hospital twice for two different reasons. The first time, Carley lost her mucous plug and started having a constant pain and consistent tightenings which made everything seem pretty real. We got a hospital bag and a snack bag packed and went off to the hospital. Turns out the baby just turned or dropped in a funny way which caused all the pain, but that along with the loss of the mucous plug certainly seemed like a reason to think it could have been going on. That... and we have no idea how much pain or what the feeling SHOULD be like once Carley ACTUALLY goes into labour.

     Our second trip to the hospital was because Carley fell down the stairs. I know! That's crazy, right? Don't worry, she's alright. At the time we were quite worried about the baby because Carley hadn't felt much movement if any since the fall and she normally feels lots of movement pretty often. She was also a little bit dehydrated because she wasn't feeling well and couldn't keep anything down throughout the day; not even water. This was concerning to us because she was leaking clear fluids after the fall which we thought could have been a ruptured bag of waters. The doctor came to take a look and found everything is well, so we stayed for another hour and a half which totalled four hours of sitting in the hospital to make sure everything was alright.

     Now I find myself thinking we need to prepare just a little bit more for the baby to get here. We have to install the car seat and get things a little bit more cleaned up; we have plans to move the furniture around in our living room and steam clean everything in the next couple days. I'm also finding that I need to get myself into more of a routine of doing things such as eating in the morning considering it'll be up to me to feel the baby in the mornings. Carley seems to like staying up later and honestly I prefer to be up late as well, but I may have to start going to be early and letting her stay up after me if I can ever get her to let me go to bed without her attached to me. I'm sure like most first-time parents we're going to be just as unprepared and clueless as everybody else and that's alright; it won't make us bad parents. I'm sure there will be times when we're just not sure what to do, or exhausted beyond belief and wanting to break down and cry, but we'll make it through. We're both stubborn people so I'm sure neither of us will let something beat us just because we're tired.

Wish us luck! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Puppy Training

     For anybody who has never trained a puppy, they can be a complete pain to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our dog, but he has been sooooooooo annoying for us to deal with at times. Usually he's pretty good for us, but he loves to bite as I would imagine most dogs do before they learn not to.

     Now some of you out there might meet Furgle and think, "How could he be a pain? He's such a sweetheart!" Well, don't let him fool you! He's actually a tiny terrorizing monster at all other points in time. Okay, maybe I'm over exaggerating a bit. He's actually not that bad when he isn't biting us all the time. We've recently started using a spray bottle whenever he starts biting to get his attention and get him to stop. He's not the biggest fan of water and to be honest, we're not really complaining about it. He's learning quickly what it means and hasn't been biting nearly as much as before.

     As for house-training him, he's been pretty good with that so far as well. He doesn't really seem to get HOW to tell us he needs to go outside yet and rather stops pretty quickly and just starts peeing... but at least he's learned to pee and poop on the pad (mostly) rather than anywhere in the kitchen. Probably in about a month from now he should be big enough to hold his waste long enough to train him to only go outside (mostly). He's progressing well I think and he seems like a pretty smart dog to me, so we'll see how long it takes him to learn everything we need to teach him. I'm looking forward to him being calm and mature enough to actually teach him some proper commands and things.

     With one solution comes another problem though. This problem isn't really a HUGE deal though compared to the issues that are possible with a dog. Furgle has... started to hump everything. Oh goodie.... I have to admit, it's a little bit funny, but I suppose it's not exactly something that I'd like him doing to things or people in public. He'll surely calm down once he gets fixed as most dogs do. We have no plans to breed any dogs, so I don't think that will be an issue at all. I'm sure just a little bit of persistence will get him to stop in no time. He usually picks up on things pretty quickly so I'm hoping we won't have too many issues with the coming baby on the way.

     So far, best Christmas present ever! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa