Play a Board Game with My Kids
And I was planning on doing so. However, we kind of managed to sabotage that plan by getting a Wii. Great plans and all that.
See, the boys got a decent amount of Christmas money this year from various family members. Rich and I decided that we'd offer Teddy the opportunity to turn his Christmas money into a 3DS if he wanted - his birthday is February 13, so we told him we'd pay the difference between what he had in Christmas money and what the cost of the 3DS was. Much to our surprise, he told us he'd rather have a Wii. Pete said he wanted one too. So we told them that if they'd kick in both their Christmas money, we'd make up whatever difference. We figured we'd pick up some games or whatever as the gifts for Teddy's birthday.
Yesterday, while we were walking around one of the local malls, we decided to stop at GameStop to see if they had a used, older generation Wii. we didn't want a new one because the newer Wiis don't have the backward capability for the GameCube games. And since we've got a ton of GameCube games, we wanted something that we could All in One. Luckily, they had one available, and it was the exact amount of Christmas money the boys had. We picked up a couple games for them (thanks, in part, to the sale GameStop has going on where you buy one used Wii or DS game and get a second half off) and said, "Happy birthday, Teddy!"
I knew they'd want to play it last night, but I also expected us to get home early enough that I could have the best of both worlds - them getting a bit of Wii time, followed by us having time to pull out a game of Dungeon to play together. What I hadn't been expecting was a 2 hour wait at the hair salon to get hair cuts. It was almost 5 by the time we got home. Between dinner, set up time for the Wii and them having some good play time on it, there wasn't going to be any play time for board games. So I did what any mom wanting to spend time with her kids would do. I picked up a controller and played along!
One of the games we picked up was Super Smash Bros Brawl. We had Super Smash Bros Melee for the GameCube, so we knew it was a game that we'd all enjoy together. Plus, it had the advantage of being able to use the Game Cube controllers with it as well (and at $30 a pop, picking up extra Wii controllers wasn't something we were able to do at the moment). The boys had been playing for a little while when I came in and told them I wanted to join in. Pulling a chair up, I sat between my boys and had a blast!
Our first game, we all played Pokemon trainers. And, much to my surprise, I actually won our first match! I still have no idea what I'm doing. I just keep hitting buttons and hoping I'm not going to throw myself over the edge! But we were still all having a lot of fun. From that point forward, Pete stuck pretty much with Kirby, Teddy bounced around, and I chose random because I like the surprise. One of the best parts of the night was me continually telling Pete, "You aren't supposed to eat Mommy! That's just mean!" (For those who aren't familiar with Kirby, that's one of his powers - eating the other players to gain their powers.) The kids were laughing, I was having a blast and it was one of the most fun nights we'd had in a long time. I suspect we'll be having many more nights like this.
Unfortunately, since I was involved in playing, I didn't get a chance to get any pictures. But that's ok. The fun is more in the playing than in the picture taking. Today I'll (hopefully) have plenty more chances to take pictures at the Pokemon pre-release tournament.
So what's my challenge for today? with the day as busy as I have planned, I'm going to pull out one that I should be able to do now, yet is still something I've been wanting to write about for awhile.
Being a Non-Christian Blogger
I've noticed a lot of the bloggers that I enjoy reading are Christian. And I have no problem with that. But it sometimes makes me uncomfortable, wondering what they'd think if they knew that I am not Christian. So it's time for me to talk about my religious beliefs - appropriate, considering the fact that my own family is at Church right now.
