The First Farewell

Willie and Bethany's farewell after their reception.

By popular demand...

We have had several of our friends and family ask us where we buy games and what we recommend. There happen to be two game stores we frequent (since they have military discounts). One of them is in Provo Towncenter and the other is at University Mall in Orem. In the past six months we've acquired over 50 games, but we thought we would submit each of our top 5 and give a brief description. These are not necessarily the most played and we're not including well known games like Apples to Apples and Pit. Helena's top five are as follows: ETC., Chronology, Wooly Bully, Loot, & VisualEyes. My own are: Loot, Carcassonne, Citadels, ETC., & Ingenious. Some noteworthy additions are Argue, Last Word, Landlock, Blokus (as well as the Trigon version) & for those Apples fans, Faces. If anyone would like descriptions for those, we will gladly comment further.

ETC. is a fast paced game for three or more. The goal is to be the first to shout the correct answer based on clues. The catch is that all answers for a given set of clues begin with the same initials. We've had some epic ETC. battles!

Wooly Bully is a tile placing game for 2-4 players. The object is to fence in as many of your sheep as possible. The more sheep you go after, the harder it is to close off. Tiles are also two sided, so it doesn't seem repetitious even after several games in a row.

Loot easily has the lowest dollars/hours of entertainment ratio. For $6-9 dollars you can own this pirate game that has consumed our lives and the lives of several relatives. It is a card game for 2-8 players (2-4 in singles and 4-8 in partnerships). Loot is simple and highly addictive.

Citadels is a sweet game for 2-9 players. The goal is to build your own city with as valuable districts as you can, all of which are purchased with a finite amount of gold. It takes a little learning but after playing once, you get the hang of it. One thing that sets Citadels apart is that it's somewhat customizable.

Chronology is another card game where each player (2 or more) attempts to place their cards in correct chronological order. Each card has a historical event from one of four categories: Sports (my favorite), Inventions & Discoveries, Arts & Entertainment, and History. This is more difficult than it sounds as many of the dates are surprising. There are plenty of cards to prevent this game from getting old, though it is a hard game to track down since it went out of print.

Carcassonne (game of the year in 2001) is a tile placing game with wooden character pieces. I am told Settlers of Catan is similar, but we never got into Settlers. One advantage over Settlers is that Carcassonne is a great game for just two players (though up to 6 can play). Carcassonne can be an investment. The expansions easily total over $100-none of which are necessary. We prefer to play with most of the expansions and they come with nice accessories. We can comment on any of them if you're curious. Easily the most complicated of the games listed here, this is a game that can last over two hours but is still rewarding.

Ingenious is a bit expensive at $40. It is simple on the surface, but has a lot of depth and it's pretty to look at. The goal is to place tiles of varying colors to advance your score. 2-4 players.

VisualEyes is a wordplay game where 19 picture dice are rolled and in Boggle fashion, players write all of the phrases they see by combining the showing pictures.

Faces, like Apples, is a comparison game with pictures of men, women, and animals instead of words. The reason we've omitted this fun game from our lists is that the number of face cards is on the small side. We are tired of it, but people who come over love it.

It's Official...

Probably the biggest news to hit our blog is summed up in the solitary word found in the picture below. We have waited for two months so that we would be able to inform family in person on Mother's Day. Helena has been battling morning sickness with an arsenal of saltines and Preggie Pop Drops--she tries to get me to eat them if I'm feeling anything other than normal but it's not going to happen. Check back for updates as any and all new developments will be posted here first!

Also, we just want to thank our friends and family members who take the time to check our blog. We're so grateful for you all! With my Army commitments, full time school, and full time work, we've been a little lax in our posting but we promise to step it up with a post each week. Last weekend at Ft. Williams I was tested and approved for my Humvy license and was also rated expert on the M-16 rifle range. Shooting assault rifles is fun but driving the real Hummers might have been better.


Lastly, I think there was a wedding or something this weekend...we'll let the pictures say it all...





Salt Lake Temple

Willie and Bethany

Grandpa Zenk

Grandma & Grandpa Woody

The Saturn-0-Luv

Our latest and lastest fish addition...

Helena and I decided the last fish we added to our tank would be the green spotted puffer fish. Green was the only color we lacked and the spot look was missing so it's a great fit. We can finally say the experiment is over. It's just in time for Willie's wedding since we'll have family out here. The next entry should have some wedding pictures...here's a few more from Las Vegas below: The Stratosphere (where we rode the amusement rides) and a view from the observation deck as well as the Hit King Pete Rose (observed in his natural habitat-a casino).