As I stated in my first post, we have a goal of having at least 2 Family Game Nights (FGN) a month this year. We also plan to include our extended families, but that did not happen this month since we just saw everyone over the holidays. 🙂 We were total overachievers, though, and managed to have 5 nights of games and snacks this month!

We had our first FGN at Tabletop Game Cafe in Clintonville on January 2nd. It was a great day of games – we tried the games Stuffed Fables, Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate, and Kill Doctor Lucky. Stuffed Fables ended up being a lot more involved than we wanted, so we played the first adventure and moved on. Another group was playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, so we tried the D&D version of the game and enjoyed it. We would really like to try the Haunted House version still. Our last pick, Kill Doctor Lucky, was quick to learn and and we all enjoyed it. We will definitely be back to Tabletop to eat delicious samosas and try out some more games!

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Our next FGN was January 6th because we were all home without plans. We decided to eat some of our yummy snack gifts from Japan (Thank you Kamei and Sato families!!) and we played Exploding Kittens and Smallworld. It was the first time for all of us playing Exploding Kittens, but it did promise it was for people that like kittens, explosions, laser beams and sometimes goats, so we were pretty sure we would like it. It was an instant favorite with all the kitten art! Keith, Micah, and I had all played Smallworld before, but it was Charlotte’s first time. We all enjoyed the game. We also really enjoyed the Japanese snacks.

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On January 20th, all activities outside our house were canceled due to weather. So, we took the chance to have a FGN! We played Pitt and Quarriors. Pitt is one of Micah’s favorites, so he was excited to play. It was not my night with the cards, so at one point I was trying to see how far negative I could go before someone won the game. Needless to say, I was not the winner. But it was a fun time for everyone. We had played Quarriors on New Year’s Eve Eve with Charlotte and it is now one of her favorite games to request. She has always like collecting things in bags, so I think this is just an extension of that passion. 😉 We all really do like the game, though. We tried a couple more snacks from Japan (chocolate drizzled potato chips and teriyaki rice cakes – both yum!!) and had chips and Little Debbies as well. And orange slices as you can see in the photos…

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This past weekend, we actually had two FGN opportunities because we were away in a treehouse cabin with no television! It was wonderful! The first night, we played an old favorite from before Keith and I had kids – Filthy Rich! It is really fun that the kids are now old enough to appreciate and enjoy games we used to play. Charlotte did not want to be Queen of the Shmoos, but it is still true that Nobody Shops at Shorty’s. The kids may have thought we were strange for the entire language we have surrounding that game, but they went along with it anyway. We also played a quick game of Tsuro. In the end, I sent Charlotte off the board, Keith sent both of us off, and Micah was victorious. We had some really great green tea (for the adults) and hot chocolate (for the kids) and some Japanese chocolate mushroom snacks, a known family favorite.

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Our second night at the cabin, we had a short FGN because we had a late dinner and didn’t have a lot of time. We played Monopoly Deal, a quick version of the Monopoly game that only uses cards but still manages to break relationships and evenings. Just kidding, it is pretty fun, but you do have to be okay with hurting other people in order to win. I am not blessed with that skill, so it will probably never be my first game pick. We had jiffy pop, green tea mochi (another family favorite), and new little chocolate and green tea Japanese treats – so yummy! We have decided there is a reason we’ve never done jiffy pop as a family snack before, though. So much shaking!

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We are sure that our opportunities for FGN will be much more limited as we move forward due to theater and other commitments, so who knows what February will look like. Will we pick a new country for snacks? Will we just try new things from Japan and the US? I guess you will have to wait and see like the rest of us!