I’ve always liked playing games. When I was younger board games were a highlight of almost every family gathering. I remember being at my grandparents’ house at Christmas time and playing pictionary or trivial pursuit. My grandparents never played but my parents, aunts and uncles, my cousin and I (we were the oldest cousins, all the younger ones either were rollerskating in the basement or sleeping) sat around the dining room table playing games. Grandma and Grandpa usually sat in their respective arm chairs reading and watching the news - or watching us.

Pictionary was always my favorite. It was fast, loud, and I kicked butt at it. Trivial pursuit was harder to play until I got to high school, then I knew more about history to be able to answer some questions. Although my family had so many expansion decks that you could almost always find a topic you knew a lot about. When we played you could pick from the original edition questions, the baby boomers edition, M.A.S.H. edition, baseball, rock and roll, television, Jr. edition, and about eight others that I can’t remember.

At my house, we have piles of games. There’s Life, Sorry, Clue, Scrabble, Super-Scrabble, Rummikub, Phase-10, Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Jenga, Taboo, Yatzee, Monopoly (which nobody will play with me), Scattegories, Simpson’s Trivia, Pit, Soloman’s Temple (don’t ask), Carcassone, KIller Bunnies (and all of it’s available expansion packs), and Settlers of Catan.

Although, out of all of those, there are only a few that we play on a regular basis. Killer Bunnies is one of my favorites because it’s easy to learn and there is a rule in the rule book that basically says you can do whatever it takes to win just shy of out-right cheating. Any game that allows bribing, bartering and black-mailing is a fun game to play.

Settlers gets played a lot in our house - I like this one because the board changes every time you set it up - you can have a great game one night and nothing the next.

Tim and Nicole got a new game the other day called Ticket to Ride. You basically build trains from city to city across Europe. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites.

So if you are looking for some new games to play, here’s what I recommend:

Two player - Carcassone, Phase-10, Rummikub, Ticket to Ride

Three - Four players - Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, Trivial Pursuit

Four or more players - Killer Bunnies, Scattegories, Pictionary, Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, Monopoly

Welcome to the world Gabriel Isaiah Johnson.

Here’s the quilt I made for Tim and Nicole. It took me a couple months to do and I really like the way it turned out. I really liked doing this quilt. It was fun to make because it was basically taking two different quilts, finding something they have in common and linking them into one. (Insert appropriate metaphor here) Tim and Nicole designed the quilt so it was a unique pattern. Not a typical been done a million times pattern. That was one of my favorite parts. On paper, they look very different from the finished product and I couldn’t wait to see how it turned out. So anyway, here’s a couple of pictures.

This is the purple side - it’s a little more traditional.

This is the red side - this one was really cool to see come together.

Here’s what I’ve been doing (and what I’ve got coming up)

Thursday, April 22
Work at 7:30 A.M. Stay at work until 7:30 P.M. for parent dinner.
Andy comes into town.

Friday, April 23
Work at 7:00 A.M. Home by 4:00 P.M.
Go out to dinner with Andy, Kevin, Lance, Tara, Dawn, and a bunch of other people - get home really late.

Saturday, April 24
Help at dog class from 8:30 - 10:15
Take Speak to dog class from 10:15 - 11:30
Rehearsal dinner for Tim & Nicole 2:30 - 5:30
Wedding rehearsal from 8:30 - 9:30
Hang out with Tim, Nicole and Andy after rehearsal
Go to bed really late

Sunday, April 25
8:00 - Wake up early and watch Tim pace the house.
10:00 - Go to Target to buy forgotten wedding supplies
10:45 - Come home and work on the sign for their car
11:30 -Go back to Target for more supplies
12:15 - Get ready for the wedding.
1:15 - Go back to Target for a fancy pen for the guest book
1:30 - Pick up Tim’s friends from the hotel
1:45 - Go to the wedding (yay!)
5:30 - Reception is over - load all the gifts and tuxes and go home
7:00 - Hang out with Lance, Tara, Kevin, Andy & Nathan
7:30 - Go out to dinner
9:30 - Come home exhausted
10:30 - Go to bed

Monday, April 26
Just work. Thank goodness.

Tuesday, April 27
Work at 7:30
Home at 4:00
5:30 - 7:30 Dog Agility (Fun)

Wednesday, April 28
7:00 -4:00 Work
4:00 - 6:30 - Shop for Mission’s Dinner Food
6:30 - 8:30 - Make corn bread for the Mission’s Dinner (I’m in charge of the acutal meal - have to cook for 150 people) and help decorate the church basement with the youth group
9:00 - 10:30 - Out to eat with the other youth leaders
11:00 - Go to bed

Thursday, April 29
7:00 - 10:15 Work
10:15 - 1:30 Design new flier for work
1:30 - 4:00 Back to work
4:00 - 8:00 Eat dinner, relax, type blog
8:00 - ? - Meeting for VBS (I get to coordinate it this year)
Go to bed

Friday, April 30
No work - off all day
7:00 A.M. go to Cub and buy Wild Rice for the dinner.
8:00 - 11:00 cut veggies for the stew
11:00 - 2:00 Make salads for the dinner
2:00 - 5:00 Set tables, help with center pieces, do last minute prep stuff
5:45 - first seating at the dinner - help the kids serve everyone
6:45 - 7:30 - Set up for second seating
7:45 - 9:00 - serve second seating
9:00 - ? - clean up church
Go to bed

Saturday, May 1
8:30 - 10:15 - Do orientation for the next dog class
10:30 - ? No class for Speak - go home a relax until Monday.

It’s been a crazy 10 days. Almost all of it is stuff I enjoy - I just wish I had more time to enjoy it instead of rushing to get it all done.

Here’s a few pictures from Tim and Nicole’s wedding. Some of them are a little blury but most of them are pretty cute. I’m only putting up a few, I’m assuming Tim will post more on his site when they return from Hawaii. But until then, here’s a sneak peak. Enjoy.

Andy, Tim, and Kevin - Lookin’ good in their tuxes

Tim and Nicole - posing for pictures before the ceremony

Mr. and Mrs. Yenter - posing for pictures after the ceremony

Lance, Tara, Andy (in back), Kevin, Abby, Nicole, Tim, Neals, Jeremy, and Nathan - College friends back together again

See, we didn’t do anything mean to the car. I think it looks cute.

I want a Nintendo, specifically a Game Cube. Tim brought his Game Cube over to our house a few weeks ago and we’ve been playing Mario Kart whenever we can. We’ve been trying to open up new cars and new race courses for sometime but we usually end up coming in second or third. Then Tim’s brother came over yesterday and got us two new cars and a new course in one afternoon. So now we have the bullet car and have been trying to break our record on the Baby Park track. Kevin scored a 1:17 but we haven’t even gotten close to Josh’s record. Tim’s getting married in a couple weeks which means he’ll be moving out and taking his Nintendo with him, which means there isn’t much time left to try and beat Josh’s record. I’ve been trying to convince Kevin of the benefits of having one - we can have the youth group over to play, it’s better than watching t.v., etc. but he’s not too enthusiastic of the idea, yet.