Family Fun and Games

I decided on a whim to go visit my parents this weekend and stay the night. My Hunny wasn't feeling well, so he stayed home, but I packed up the kids and their clothes and we high-tailed it out of Dodge, arriving at their house in Chilliwack by 8:30pm. So much for an earlier arrival and visit before bed! After setting everything up and showing off all of the new toys and telling them all of the news they had to share, we finally climbed into bed by10:30pm! (it's a good thing it was a weekend!)

The next day, we hung around in pjs and watched movies and it was wonderful! I felt like I hadn't seen my parents in a long time (although they had come for Abi's baptism last weekend, but that went by fast!) so I wanted to go see them while I could!

They were away this summer in Powell River visiting my brother and his family, and during that time, they were introduced to the game of Monopoly Empire. This isn't the same version of Monopoly I grew up with! This is a completely new version. It has new spaces made up of corporations (such as McDonald's, Nerf, Carnival, Coca-Cola, Paramount, etc) instead of the usual street names. The set up looks different and it is played differently too. Instead of collecting houses and hotels to build on your streets, you collect your corporations and each company is added to your 'business tower'. As your tower increases in size, your salary (for when you pass GO) and your tax and rent (for when others land on your spaces or if you owe money to others or the bank, etc) increases.  This new version is set up in a way that the game can be started and finished within half an hour.  The game ends when someone fills up their Business Tower first. My parents wanted to introduce us to the game, and we all loved it!

The Olders had fun playing against Grandpa! He knows the rules and he'll play to his advantage! In one game, the corporation Intell came up for Auction and he managed to bid up Kai high enough that K won it, but in the next move, he played a Hostile Takeover card, which meant he could take the Intell piece!  We all roared with laughter! Sneaky!  

I used to play Monopoly, Risk, and Settlers of Catan with my sister and brother and our friends, but my favourite game has always been Clue!  Mostly, every game we played, my brother won. I don't know how it was that way. He was cutthroat and didn't have sympathy like I did. He was also good at planning ahead, which I still suck at! But since having children, our broad games have been put up high and untouched...which is sad. But we didn't want the kids losing pieces and we haven't had time to actually do any playing.

Thankfully, our kids are getting older and we can maybe start to pull those games down to enjoy as a family. Maybe... After the Youngers are in bed...

Do you have any games that your family likes to play?