#429 - Slugbug

Did you ever play Slugbug? We used to play a lot, I think I even remember playing in our carpool - maybe in high school? It's where you see the VW Beetles while you're traveling, you say "Slugbug!" and you get to hit/slap/punch someone else if you beat them to it. Well, today, TLG and I were driving around doing errands, and I taught him to play Slugbug. I don't know what made me think of it, it's been years since I even thought of the game. TLG wasn't very good at finding the cars, but he thought the game was hysterical! He even chased me up the eisles of the stores, yelling Slugbug! and slapping me on the arm. It was fun to share something so silly with him and it made me remember lots of good times with my carpool buddies.

#425 - Wii Fit Plus

The second of the new Wii games we recently purchased is the Wii Fit Plus. One thing we didn't like about the regular Wii Fit was that it was always for one player only. The best feature about the new Plus games is the ability to take turns among players without having to go out to the main menu each time. There's also a few new games for the multi-player mode only, including a a fun snowball fight that TLG really enjoys, and an obstacle course game. (You still only play one player at a time, but at least you can take turns easier.) Much of the rest of this game is the same as the regular Wii Fit, with the yoga, strength training and games. But we're still really enjoying this new addition to our collection.

#420 - Toy Story Wii Game

Tonight we headed to Best Buy to choose a new Wii game (or three)... two of our choices are ones I will critique for you, the third (Indiana Jones and the "something something") is one my hubby will probably play without me. First up: Toy Story Mania Wii game. This game is based on the two Toy Story rides at Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure, so we knew I would like it - plus TLG likes these movies and remembers the rides too (see photo, left, taken last September on the ride at California Adventure). The Wii game game with two 3D glasses with the red-and-blue windows in them. I never did adjust to wearing them (but that could have been because I was wearing my regular glasses today and the 3D glasses didn't fit well). TLG loved the glasses. As for the game, we played for about 30 minutes, and all the games we remember from our trip to Disney showed up somehow - the "ring an alien" game featured in the photo, plus the balloon pop, the shooting gallery with the bullseyes, and some we didn't remember like the teacup switch and the whack-an-alien-with-a-hammer-to-shoot-him-into-space. The game was a definite "hit" at our house, considering TLG had a little tantrum when it was time to turn it off and go get ready for bed. I do believe we'll be playing lots of this one in the future!

#417 - Hearts

The little guy got a ton of new games for Christmas and his recent birthday (thanks, everybody!). His newest favorites include Yahtzee Jr., Whack-a-Mole, Gator Golf, Cranium Cariboo Island and Dr. Seuss' Super Stretchy ABC game. But today he found a few tiny card games in the bottom of a gift bag he hadn't previously explored too closely. We decided to try a game of Hearts. Thank goodness there were instructions in the box, because even though I've played Hearts tons myself, explaining it to someone else sounded hard. It actually wasn't too bad, the rules are simple and TLG understands numbers that are "higher than" and "lower than" and he can count past 20 so there weren't any problems there. He actually beat me by quite a few cards! I will say we've played Yahtzee Jr. (the Toy Story version) a few times each day since Christmas, so it was nice to play something else for a few minutes.

#409 - Bowling

This morning, we took The Little Guy bowling for the first time. Granted, he knows all about bowling from playing on our Wii so he already knew that there would be a ball to throw to knock down 10 pins (he even knew that it's called a strike!). My dad, my wonderful hubby and I took him to the Fireside Lanes in Citrus Heights while we were all together for Thanksgiving. TLG took about three steps into the bowling alley and got very excited to see all the lanes and pines and balls (and funny shoes!) We used the bumpers on our lane and TLG got 73 pins in his first game and 50-something on the second game. He used a 6-pound ball and was able to hold it with the correct fingers and throw it using one arm (though he tried out each arm a few times). No granny-rolling between his legs for our little guy! It was really fun to see him dance around in excitement to try this new thing.

#374 - Wings & Games

My hubby and I went on a special date night tonight and had dinner at a new place: Buffalo Wild Wings. We chose it because it's right next to the movie theater (and we chose to go see "Monsters vs. Aliens" without TLG tonight). It's a bar/grill type of place, and it was pretty crowded, but we got a table right away. We enjoyed the food, I had delicious wings with medium sauce (pretty spicy, actually, but they were great) and we shared some cheesy potato wedges. Hubby, who doesn't like wings, ordered a burger and said it was great. But the best part of dinner: I had heard about the trivia games they have, and our waitress brought us an electronic console so we could join in... it was really fun! The first game was popular music trivia and we didn't do so well, actually. But the second game was general trivia and we did great - though what do you expect when out of 10 questions, one was about the Muppet Show and two were about cars? We came in 5th in the restaurant out of 20 people playing. I can definitely see us going back here again sometime soon!

#366 - TLG's First Basketball Game

My husband and I both went to the University of Nevada, Reno and therefore we both know how to "Back the Pack." (For you uninitiated folk, that's the Nevada Wolfpack.) Tonight, we took TLG to his first Wolfpack men's basketball game. We started the evening by visiting the bookstore to purchase new shirts for all of us, because you have to dress the part to attend a Nevada game! Then we proceeded to the game... My boss let me have his tickets, since he was unable to attend, and his seats were great. From our vantage point, we could clearly see the game, the cheerleaders, the mascots, and the band. TLG loved seeing the mascots best of all, though at first he said they were "bears" instead of wolves. He quickly figured it out, though, and we all had a great time. We clapped along with the music, ate tons of popcorn, and cheered on the team to victory! We did end up leaving before the game ended, since it was well past TLG's bedtime, but we stayed long enough to ensure a win.

#363 - Wii All Had a Good Time

My wonderful family gave us a handful of new Wii games for Christmas, so last night and this evening we taught some of my family members to play with the Wii remotes, and we tried a bunch of new games: Wii Music, Dancing with the Stars, Star Wars Force Unleashed, and a Namco Arcade game (which includes Pac Man and Dig Dug, two games I grew up with). A few thoughts on the games: 1) The Little Guy loved the Wii Music game. If you know any three-year-olds, I'd recommend this one to try, since a good portion of it doesn't require any ability to point the controller at the screen - just wave it around to "play" an instrument or conduct an orchestra. And, I hate to brag, but TLG was really getting good at matching pitches and answering questions about music in the Pitch Perfect game. 2) My husband is a better "Dancer" than I am... he insists that this means he is a better video gamer than me, but I think that's a silly excuse to get out of dancing with me in person more often. 3) I only observed the Star Wars game, which apparently lets the player become Darth Vader, swinging a light saber and searching out a Jedi knight. But my hubby thought it was great, and I do believe that I'll be hearing Darth's funny breathing more and more around our house. 4) As for the Pac Man game, I hate to say it, but some things are better left alone. We need to go buy some "traditional" controllers to make this one more palatable for me. I used to be really good at Dig Dug but the controllers really held me back. 5) I think my favorite part of this session was during the Wii Music game last night, when we all got the giggles because we were "conducting" so poorly. What a crack-up.

#353 - Memory

One of the great birthday gifts TLG received from a friend yesterday was the game Memory. I haven't played it in eons, so I was very excited to try it. It turns out my hubby had never played it before, so today our little family played our first real "board" game with TLG. (OK, technically Memory doesn't have a board, since you just spread out the cards and find the matching pairs, but since it comes in a box and is sold in the game section, I'm calling it a board game.) The little guy didn't completely understand the rules about taking turns, but he was trying. He just got so excited when he knew there was a match to be found, well, it was hard to enforce the rules! I can't wait to share more games with him, I just hope he likes them as much as his parents do.

#347 - Wii Mii

Today, our family bought a Nintendo Wii. We have it all set up downstairs but haven't had much chance to play with it yet... however, we did set up our "Mii" avatars, these are characters that look like us to show on the screen while we're playing. We giggled like crazy - TLG included - as my hubby set his up with crazy eyes, a beard, and dreadlocks. So now we have Mii's for all three of us. That took us so long, that when we were done we only had time to play the first game, which was a lot like the old Nintendo "Duck Hunt" with the point-and-shoot clay shoot. I can hardly wait to try some of the other silly games we got with our controllers... I think we're really going to like this! If you're in the neighborhood, come over and play with us, OK?

#346 - Air Hockey

When my hubby and I were first dating, we played quite a bit of air hockey. I don't know how it happened, but many of the places we went, there were tables, so we always stopped to play. (Maybe this is a sign that we are just kids at heart?) Today, while we were at the movie theater waiting for the movie to begin, I took TLG into the game room and decided we could try to play air hockey, just the two of us. I showed him where the puck came out, and we slowly batted it up and back on the table a few times, until it went into the slot on his side of the table. He thought that was lots of fun, so he picked it up and immediately put it back through. Ummmm, yeah. He knocked it up the table once or twice more, but mostly he just put it through the slot on his table a bunch of times, and then the game was over. It cracked me up that I couldn't explain the game better, but come on - I was way at the other side of the table in a room filled with noise and kids and games and neon. My wonderful hubby came back just in time to see the game ending, so I have a witness for this silly new thing. Next time we'll double-team him and try to explain it a little better!

#307 - Eat It

This evening, my sister and her husband played a new board game with me and my hubby - a snack and dessert-trivia game called Eat It. This was a birthday gift to my hubby, who does enjoy a snack and dessert once in a while (OK, often...) It was kind-of like trivial pursuit in that there were categories of questions and you had to gather things when you answered correctly in a certain area. Some of the questions seemed easy (What is the snack that smiles back? Goldfish!) and a good number were very hard (How many stripes of chocolate on a Keebler's Fudge Stripe cookie? Five!) I came in last at the end of this game, having only collected one card for mastering a category... and my sister took home a gold star for winning the game. Thanks for the fun game, Mom! We enjoyed it!

#296 - Sprinklers At the Park!

My hubby didn't believe me when I told him there was a set of fountains at the nearby park that are available for playing in from Memorial Day to Labor Day. (He thought it must be only on those days, since the City of Reno would never pay for something like that.) Regardless, after months of me trying to get our family to go check it out: tonight we went to the local park and TLG ran in the play fountains, which were pretty awesome. This is the same park that has the skateboard ramps I wrote about in a much earlier post. There are four fountains, two on poles and two that shoot out of the ground, and the entire area is covered in that squishy rubber playground covering stuff. You step on a circle on the ground to turn them all on, and they go off by themselves a minute or so later. TLG was just wearing regular clothes so it took him a minute of watching another child running in the water before he decided to go in also. But he got soaked and ran around quite a bit before the wind got to him and it was time to bundle up in a towel and head for home (and a warm bath). We'll definitely have to keep this in mind next summer when it's so hot all the time!

#293 - Do You Play Croquet?

TLG has a book called simply "Summer" that arrived a few weeks ago from his book club, and he loves it because it features many of the things he's done this summer: going to the beach, picnics outside, watering things with a hose, riding a ferris wheel, eating watermelon - you get the idea. One of the things in the book is the game of croquet, but he's never done that. Today he noticed that we have a croquet set in our shed, and so today's new thing is: the little guy and I smacked a croquet ball around the backyard with the hammers. OK, so we didn't set up the metal hole-thingys, and I didn't explain any of the rules, and we only had one ball between us. He was fascinated, and I have to say it was extra cute to see him trying to hit this ball (only to have him hit it straight on, like a hammer on a nail, which of course does no good).

#254 - Swimming With A Quasi-Net

The little guy loves anything to do with playing in water - and today we let him swim in my aunt and uncle's pool with a lifejacket so he didn't have to cling to us. At first, we let him try with just a circular fish blow-up toy (see photo) but that made me really nervous, especially in the deep end of the pool. The lifejacket is made for little guys, and is attached to some spandex shorts so there was no way for him to get out of it - he seemed to like it and it made me feel a little more safe about him being in the pool. His favorite activities alternated between jumping in (with me catching him each time) and using the fish floaty to swim by kicking his legs up-and-back the length of the pool. We had a great time in swimming!

#234 - Texas Hold 'Em

I am not a poker player, but yes I have played before in my life. Tonight, however, my family gathered together for a Texas Hold 'Em tourney, complete with all sorts of strange betting terminology (big blinds? flops?). Thank goodness my stepdad is a good poker player and doesn't mind going over all the poker basics for us (what's higher, a 3-of-a-kind or a flush? and how do we bet again?) I was the second person to run out of chips, but it still was fun to all do something together.

#232 - Rummikub

My extended family met for a long weekend at Lake Tahoe today, and I learned how to play Rummikub. This is a game that's like Gin Rummy, only you use plastic tiles instead of playing cards. My mom, uncle, and I took quite a while to get the hang of it, and I think it was more stressful than fun... maybe if we had more practice with the game it would be more enjoyable. (When I learned to play euchre years ago, I felt the same way, but I enjoy that game quite a bit now.)

#217 - A Game to Pass the Day

We had a potluck BBQ luncheon in my building today (despite the rain and gloomy weather), and after we ate, we played pictionary at work. This was a planned event (not spontaneous) and we had teams of 6 people - and man, it was fun! I have always loved games, especially Pictionary, though I haven't played in a long time. I was on the winning team in the end, but we all laughed so much it wouldn't have mattered much. It was a great way to break the ice with my new co-workers, and I hope we do it again before the summer is out.

#99 - Scratchers

Tonight, I played a scratch-off lottery ticket (from the state of California, since we don't have a lottery here in Nevada). The ticket was a Christmas gift from a distant relative, who had no idea she was contributing to my new-thing-a-day habit. I won $4, but only if I remember to take it with me on my next trip there and cash it in. Hey, it's more than I won the last time I went to play the slots in the casinos!

#98 - Hide and Seek

There's so much snow here that our big outing of the day was to the grocery store. And it's so cold that we stayed indoors the rest of the day. When TLG surprised us and covered his eyes, counted to 10 (keep in mind, he skips some of the numbers, making it absolutely adorable), and then said "Ready or not, here I come!" ... well, of course it was time to play hide and seek! Of course the daycare must have taught him that. We've played peekaboo a million times, but this time I took his big blanket and ran into another room, and "hid" under it, waiting for him to come "find" me. Of course, each time he did, we'd laugh hysterically, and he'd say "Do it again!" We must have played this game for at least half-an-hour. It was so much fun!