header-photo

Monday, January 05, 2009

Back to the daily grind.

The kids went back to school today. Finally! I was happy to have them home for a couple of weeks, but I must admit I was ready for the routine that school provides. One of my most favorite things we did over their break was play games. And boy did we play games! First up we have Settlers of Catan.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times we played this game! Once or twice a day for a week I'm sure. Anna Grace wasn't a fan of this game, but she decided that that was ok. The box did say for ages 10 and up, and she is only 9. To make AG happy we played several rounds of Take the Train.


This is a fairly easy game to play as there isn't much strategy involved. You play the cards dealt to you as soon as you have an open spot. Easy peasy.

Another fun discovery was Bananagrams.



Brian's aunt, uncle and cousin sent us this game for Christmas. It is similar to Scrabble but much more fun in my opinion!

There were also a few rousing games of Blokus.


Simple to play and always fun!

I thought we were done. Back to school. Back to real life. Then we went to Barnes and Noble to browse this afternoon. We came home with a new game. Carcassonne.



Brian had seen this one before Christmas and mentioned it to me. Today we bought it, because as Brian said, "We've been there!" (We had a chance to visit Carcassonne on our trip to France back in September.) We played it for the first time this evening. Fun game! I'm sure there will be many more rounds of it in the coming days as we work on perfecting our strategies!

Game playing...I must admit. I love it! (But not those games where you have to yell out things or make a fool of yourself singing or have some crazy instructions you have to carryout. No. I prefer games where you have to sit and think or mindless games you can talk through. No action games for me!) (Did I just alienate some of my readers again? I think I'm getting good at that!)

14 comments:

Sra said...

We have Carcasonne too, and think it's pretty fun. We also like St. Petersburg by the same people who did Carcasonne. St.P might actually be a bit more fun, but it's kind of more complicated to learn, and it doesn't help that the instructions were poorly translated from German. Blokus is fun too.

You know what's not fun? A card game called Crazy Golf. It fits your description of a bad game in the last paragraph.

Lynn - the piggy bank painter said...

We played a few rounds of Apples to Apples and Imaginiff. Both are good group games and no brainers. I don't like games where I have to strategize....I play games to relax, not to think : )

DD and I play scrabble quite a bit....she's almost 13 and can beat me now. Argh. I've seen bananagrams around, we'll have to pick that up and give it a try....

Anonymous said...

My kids like the Catan game. I used to enjoy board games more, but really like them best in a big group.

Anonymous said...

Blokus is big at my house. The little man is king of the "B".

peace
#2

Anonymous said...

We played Trouble, god I love that game

#1

Anonymous said...

I LOVE games but now that the kids are out of the house it's just the hubby and I so only 2-player games are really relevant. Seeing this post introduced me to a whole new category of games for which I totally blame you for browsing for the past 2 hours on boardgamegeek.com. We've always liked Sequence (really fun with a group and you don't have to shout silly things), Racko, dominos-Mexican Train version, Can't Stop, backgammon, Clue (3 or more players), Scrabble, Monopoly (just bought the electronic version as I hear it makes the game more fun) and card games (but you need 4 people) like euchre and spades. After my marathon internet quest, I am now considering buying several games: Carcassonne, Ingenious, Hive, and Ticket to Ride. OK now, really really really, I am going to leave the computer and go do some stuff I'm supposed to! Thanks for the post!

Mamadallama

Anonymous said...

It's been a long time since I played anything more advanced than Candyland. I used to play Risk with my neighbors and loved it. When I was a kid we always played Sorry. Can't wait till the kids are old enough to play something more interesting.

HeyJoe said...

I have not heard of any of those games. The Settlers of Catan?? That sounds like some sort of made up, SNL skit/game. And what's with the chick with the scythe? Are you playing against the Grim Reaper; Settle Catan or Die!

HeyJoe said...

And "Blokus?" Joke in there somewhere. Is this still a PG rated blog?

C.J. Koster said...

Settlers of Catan is an amazing game. We play it over here in Korea. It gets kinda rowdy and friendships have been broken because of it but rightly so. I hate it when people cut off my road.

Momo Fali said...

We love games too. My daughter got Blokus for Christmas (only because I really wanted it), but we haven't played it yet because there were also new Wii games under the tree.

Anonymous said...

Great game ideas. I am always thinking we need to play more games together. One of these days we will.

Thanks for stopping by! I've got you on the list ...

Anonymous said...

We found Blokus today at Target and bought it. Of course. And we've already played it. Of course. Just me and hubby. It's a really good 2 player game and I can see it will be fun with more as well. Thanks for the recommendation!

Mamadallama

Natalie said...

sra - i'll have to look into st. petersburg. i'm sure we would love it! crazy golf...thanks for the tip to avoid it!

lynn - i have seen apples to apples but never played it. i don't even know what the game is about! i don't want to strategize too much. i want it to be fun!

citizen of the world - we just got an edition to our settlers game so i'm sure we will be playing it for a long time!

#2 - our blokus game is in a shipment on it's way back to america from turkey. we gave the game to brian's brother for christmas so we were able to play with him. now we are just waiting on ours to get here!

#1 - trouble...now there's a game that i get bored with. not sure why. i always want to get up during the other players turns and do something. i know...i am crazy!

mamadallama - well i'm glad you had fun! racko, sequence, mexican train...all favorites around here. we learned to play backgammon in turkey. it is everywhere there! we enjoy it quite a bit too!

memarie lane - candyland...i am so glad i don't have to play that game anymore! it got to the point where i cheated so the game could end already! i didn't even care if i lost...just wanted it to be over with!

heyjoe - it is a great game! you guys should totally try it. i totally wish we lived close to you guys, because game night would be fun! and the chick with the scythe...she has to cut her wheat field so she can trade it for other things she needs...duh!

blokus...yep...we're still pg.

cj - i know! i hate that too. i never get longest road! never ever. wah!

momo fali - blokus is great! good for you using your kid's christmas present as a way to get something you really want!

mina - thanks! games are fun!

mamadallama - good! glad you liked it!