GOT GAME?

In a world that has most everyone playing on their computers, much like you are right now, I'm sure, just as I am, there are still people out there that love to play board and card games! I am one of these people. We grew up playing games. One of my brothers gave me a board game every Christmas until he took himself away from this part of the family. The last game he gave me was The Hardy Boys Mystery Game. I still have it and I still love it! I even still have my original Candy Land game, the outside box is pretty worn, but the inside stuff is still great. I even have The Cinderella Game in its original box. I have loads of games, board and card games. Yes, we even play games with face cards! I am blessed to have a husband who is usually willing to come and play games not on the computer. I am even more blessed to live near cousins who love to play board and card games with real live people. We don't have as many game nights as we would like, but we always have a good time, even with poor sports in the crowd and other such negative nonsense! Tonight was one of those nights. The cousins came over and we played The Game of Life, you know the real one, not with credit cards and such. We also played Payday, one of their favorites!


Funny story about Payday, on my mission, my companion and I spent a family night with a family in our ward. My companion was losing pretty bad and then had the brilliant idea that the reason she was losing was because she wasn't paying her tithing, so she started setting money aside for tithing and ended up winning the game! It was really funny.

Another time, playing Monopoly (another favorite, we have several different versions including BYUopoly), my bestest friend was setting money aside for tithing and my nephews couldn't figure out what she was up to, they were convinced she was cheating! Then she won the whole thing and we made them figure out what some people set aside money for and pay to the Bishop. I have tried this with many games, but for me, it works best with Payday and I do it almost every time. Sometimes it works and I win by a lot, not even counting my tithing and sometimes I don't win, but it is always funny to have the new person playing try to figure out what I'm up to by setting money aside every time I get money!


Card games, growing up, we even played 21, or blackjack. It isn't one of my favorites, but my dad loved it and would play. My mom had a hotel bank full of pennies and we used them to play. These type of games, board and card, were used to help us learn counting and often money lessons were involved, too. My dad didn't play many games, his favorite was probably UNO. He would play Skip-Bo, very rarely and Yahtzee, too. One time we got him to play Yahtzee and he got 4 Yahtzee's in one game. We didn't like him to play that one anymore, LOL! My mother-in-law taught us how to play Screw Your Neighbor (face cards) several years ago and it has become a family favorite with loads of funny stories, but they aren't necessary appropiate family stories, LOL. This game is very similar to Phase10, to give you an idea.


After my dad died, my mom and I, would play one sheet of Yahtzee every night before going to bed. It would take us about an hour. On the night, Steve and I met, in person for the first time, he and I were sitting out on the porch talking and my mom came to ask if we were going to do our nightly Yahtzee. Steve and I went in and played. That tradition continued for quite awhile after that, whether it was just the two of us or with Steve.


I also love to do puzzles. I love word searches, cryptoquotes and sudoku! I love game nights! The slide show is mostly games we have and a couple my cousins have that we all love to play. What are your favorites? I can't decide, I love too many of them! Some I have, some I dont'! As I said before, we have tons of games and we love to play them. Who's game?! BRING IT ON!!!