February
2007
Friends, Jasper, & Games!
Last week our good friends Toby and Chloe came for a visit. It was so great to have them here with us! We took a trip to the Science Centre with the boys, ate at our favorite restaurants (Langano Skies-Ethiopian and Haweli’s-Indian), and I got lots of help around the house with laundry and watching the boys so I could run errands. If only I had that kind of help all the time…I would have to invest in Starbucks though! Part way through their visit we got to take a side trip with Mike’s department to Jasper. They did some skiing, I took the day off, did some hiking and took photos. Sunday we went on a 3-hour hike through Malligne Canyon. Every year I never cease to be amazed by how beautiful that walk on the ice is, and how beautiful the mountains are. We saw lots of long horn sheep this year, an elk, and even a wolf! So beautiful. The boys did really well on the hike and I was glad to share some of the outdoors with them. I was also super thankful for Yaki who carried Brandon for me!
In addition to enjoying the beauty of Alberta outdoors, our friends’ visit also gave us the chance to play lots of games! And you can never play too many games! Our favorites for the week were Power Grid, Fury of Dracula, and an old standby El Grande. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Toby didn’t get to make his freaky voice overs with Mississippi Queen. 
Maybe next time?
Mike and I had been playing some 2 player games of Power Grid before Toby and Chloe came and were really starting to get into it. The four player game is quite different though and I had trouble keeping up! It must be the cutthroat play of our friends! The premise of the game is to build power plants and power cities, whoever is powering the most cities by a certain point in the game wins. Toby brought up Fury of Dracula and we liked it so much we bought it from him. In this game there are four Hunters who are searching Europe for Dracula, one player is Dracula who secretly records each city he goes through. It’s a cooperative game from the standpoint of the Hunters. Our first game, we were just learning the rules, took about 5 hours and we just quit because it was so late! But we were able to get the second game down to 4 hours and the Hunters beat Dracula. I feel like I’m getting a better sense of the game and having been a hunter twice I’m anxious to try out the role of Dracula. Mike and I are thinking about playing a two player game after paper deadlines. El Grande is well…El Grande, an awesome game that we don’t get to play often enough, mostly because it takes over 2 hours to play and also because we have so many other ones to choose from.
Thanks Chloe and Toby for the fun times, all the help with the boys, and giving us so many opportunities to play games! We really miss our times together and it’s fun to recreate them every so often. Love you guys, you’re the best!
