It's D'n'DEEEEEEE! Fightin' with the legend o' yore!

Hi all!
I've finally started up a D&D 3.5 campaign where I game master for my best friend, his little brother his little sister and her boyfriend. They're all completely new to pen and paper roleplaying games, aside from that one time I tried to get a New World of Darkness game going with mostly the same group (which sadly failed, mostly because of me being new to GM'ing).
I started them off with a simple and short dungeon crawl module called "A Dark and Stormy Knight", just to get them a little used to throwing dice, and knowing wich dice to throw in which situations.
The game went pretty well and all players had a good time killing and looting hobgoblins, rats and a spider... even if that last one almost killed off the party's Bard.
The Bard is played by my best friend's sister while my friend himself plays a Sorcerer. His little brother is playing a Dwarven Barbarian while the sister's boyfriend plays a Human Fighter.
What was funny about this session was that by far the most hit point damage and kills came from the Sorcerer's Hawk familiar and the Barbarian's guard dog animal companion.
I'm also teaching each player a prayer to their character's god for good fortune, during which they will kneel before the gaming group's mascot (a Big Daddy figurine), place their dice in front of the mascot and repeat their individual prayers after me. Besides that bit of crazyness we also already have our first in-joke about falling down a shaft when rolling a one every once in a while... fear the shaft... fear the shaft indeed.

Next up I'll have them play through a strongly modified version of the module called "The Ettin's Riddle". I want the next couple of games to be more skill oriented than combat oriented, so I'll let the players have their characters set up shop with the loot they got in the first adventure in the small town that the adventure will happen in. I'll have a festival going on in the town soon after the characters arrive to help flesh out the world and it's backstory and give the party's Bard and Sorcerer a chance to shine and help the party's reputation in the town they'll be using as their home base. I'll be working on the general feel of the town as well as some interesting NPC's, to help the players grow attached to the town. And by the end of the festival, when the players have found a place to stay, I'll spring the main adventure on them.

I almost can't wait for the next game session.
Friis out...