Family time

Super bowl weekend.  Anyone really gearing up for it?  Honestly, if your team is not on the sidelines in New Orleans, what's the interest level?  Not really planning anything special, but I will probably watch tonight's game if only for the over hyped commercials.  But I have even seen a few of commercials on the net already.  Not even sure if we will make it back in time for kick off.  My mom is turning 90 on Monday.  My older brother (the one who lives in a yurt in Seattle) made it a point to fly back down this weekend for her birthday.  Since Monday is a school night for many, the family is planning a big birthday dinner party at an fancy Italian restaurant across town.  Everyone is going to be there.  Sons, grandsons, DILs, wives, and 2 grandkids.  Should be a fun time.  We even got the restaurant to open back up just for us (normally closed on Superbowl Sunday).  Mom is still pretty spry for a 90 year old lady.  Both her and dad are still out roaming the countryside  in their trailer.  They are even up in Montgomery today at a rally with their Airstream club.  So far, they have show little signs of slowing down and I am happy that they are as active and mobile as they are.  Stephen found this little nugget on the Internet for her birthday.  

Trailer life is for the birds

Stephen and Rebecca came home late Friday to attend the party as well.  Good to see the kids again.  We went out to Outback last night with them and her parents and afterwards we went to their home to play a board game called Acquire.  An old fashioned board game that is a cross between monopoly and risk.  You buy and sell hotels and try to make as money as you can:

• Acquire is one of the older games to be played at ManorCon. The players form chains of hotels on the board, and then buy shares in them. As the chains expand, their value increases. Eventually takeovers start to occur, with the larger chains swallowing up the smaller ones. When this happens, the shareholders in the smaller chains are bought out, with a nice little cash bonus going to the two largest shareholders. Of course, their are new chains appearing all the time, a few of which grow to be large, but most get swallowed up by the large chains before they have a chance. Eventually the hotel market becomes saturated, at which point the players count up their money and the value of their shares, with the player with the highest value winning.

We had never played it before so it took a bit of learning but we finally got the hang of it.  We haven't done board games in a while and, despite my grumpy nature, it was kind of fun (in a geeky way), but it requires some thinking/strategy.  I think I'll stick to something simpler like Mexican train.

With all the technological devices available and video games, it is nice to sometimes go old school with the family.