Birthday Party #2 . . .

At Birthday Party #2, we killed three birds with one stone. Three December birthdays, three celebrations, one fun party . . .

(Artwork by Ethan; game of find-the-letters-and-see-what-they-spell by my mom. . . )

It was a fun party all the way around but the highlight for me was this:

My parents had recently brought home a large number of items from an auction with the intention of re-selling them. They hadn't had a chance to really go through them yet so things were stacked, somewhat unsorted, in their sun room. I began browsing half heartedly, knowing that I didn't need one more thing in my already overflowing house, when something caught my eye:

A troll.

My aging eyesight managed to spy a LOTR troll in a filmy plastic bag buried beneath a stack of board games. Before my hand reached out to pick it up, I knew I had found a wonderful little treasure. . .

I was mostly speechless but I managed to tell my dad that it looked like a Lord of the Rings Chess set. He casually mentioned that he might have seen a LOTR chess board in another box in the garage but didn't know if it matched the set I had in my hand. . .

Of course it matched!! The entire set looks to be in mint condition! Thanks to my mom's and dad's generosity, I am now the proud owner of all of these little beauties:

Rob made the mistake of challenging me to a game. I don't think he fully realized the extent of my chess playing experience. My high school nerdiness paid off. . .

He tried to blame his loss on the fact that a troll just doesn't look like a bishop but when I beat him the second time in less than 10 minutes, he had to concede that I'm a better chess player than him. OK, he didn't actually say that but, facts are facts. . .

So even though this post was supposed to be about Gloria's birthday weekend extravaganza, it was actually all about me! :)