Fun and Games

We returned this afternoon from Winter Retreat with our cool youth group kids. The weekend went much differently than originally planned, given the huge snowstorm on Friday. We spent the night at the church instead of at the camp we were headed to. But all went well, and we made some fun memories.

One of my favorite parts of these trips is the games we play. On Friday night, I attempted to teach a group to play Settlers of Catan. This game was introduced to us by my sister and brother-in-law, and now it's one of my favorites! It's very obscure - you can't find it at Toys'RUs or Walmart... you have to go to specialty game stores or on the internet (Amazon or ebay I'm sure). Anyway, the game does require strategy and patience, but it's great because it's different every time you play it. We got about halfway through... I think I was winning when we got done.

Another great game is Cranium - we played that on Saturday afternoon and evening. I love this one because it's a team effort and everyone is good at different things, so you get to work together. We had great fun and that's where my current quote comes from. I said, "She's had a few bad experiences in the recent future" about one of the players who didn't want to do more acting out during the game... what I meant to say was "in the recent past". That's how tired I was!

After that game, we played Mafia, which is probably the best game ever. You can play it anywhere, anytime, as long as you have at least 6 or 7 people. It's all about killing people and lying about it. But hey, what's youth group without a little killing and lying, right? I didn't get to be the mafia in any of the 3 games we played, so that was a bummer, but it was nice when the doctor saved me!

All that to say, it was a good weekend, and yes, there is life away from TV, cell phones, computers, and busyness... and one of the best parts of that life is games!