We have been having a lot of fun playing board games again lately.

I have such fond memories of board games growing up.  I was a kid before video games and personal computers and cell phones, so when we weren’t playing outside or watching The Brady Bunch or The Partridge Family or My Three Sons or Hazel or The Waltons (who’s with me here?!) :), we played board games.  I loved Chutes and Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry O, Trouble, Operation, Battleship, Life, Monopoly….

Anyone else remember this commercial?

Playing board games waned as I got older and life got crazier (and when I thought I was too cool).

Then when I started dating Marty, I loved going over to his house, because his Mom loved playing games.  We played Trivial Pursuit weekly for years it seems.  (Oh – and often while sipping Bourbon Slushes!)  And hey – I learned important “stuff” – like how six shakes equals a “dash” of salt.

And when the boys were young, we played all the good ole’ favorites again.

We now usually play a few board games at our family New Year’s party with The Hendy family.  But for the most part, the games remain in the cupboard below the bookshelf – resting – and waiting…

Lately we’ve started playing Scrabble again.  Cold weather…. warm fires….  it all kind of works together – right?

(Pssssstt – Don’t tell anyone my letters, because Liz ROCKS at this game, and I need all the help I can get!)

(and do you notice that every stinkin’ letter is worth a whopping 1 point on my tile rack?)

And then we recently dug out Smart Ass…

It’s like a modern-day, fast-paced Trivial Pursuit in which “even if you’re a dumb ass, you can win!”

The goal is to be the first to shout out the answer as another players reads clues from more vague to more specific.  BUT – if you get it wrong  – you are out.  If you hang on until the end (when the last clue often gives initials to to the answer), you can almost always get it, but it’s usually too late because some other Smart Ass already shouted out the answer.  So you have to think fast, but balance it with knowing you are right and risking whether to shout it out or not.

So try your hand at this one in the “What am I?” (my favorite the easy peasiest) category.

1. I was invented in 1904
2. I am usually found in the kitchen
3. I’m used in a cup or mug
4. Ceylon is particularly famous for my contents
5. I make a nice beverage
6. I work with boiling water
7. I’m a specific type of container
8. I have dried leaves inside me
9. I compete with metal strainers
10. What am I, with the initials T.B.?

I’ll post the answer tomorrow if you haven’t already figured it out by #10.

Here’s a “Where am I?” (my least favorite the category I am least likely to get correct) question:

1. I am a river
2. My Celtic name probably means “dark river”
3. I flow from the Cotswold Hills
4. Charles Dickens wrote about me
5. I am the main source of London’s water supply
6. Upstream I have locks; downstream I have docks
7. I flow past the Tower of London and Greenwich
8. Oxford and Cambridge rowing teams meet on me annually
9. London Bridge crosses me
10. Where am I, with the initials R.T.?

What number did you get the answer on?  Would you have spouted it out or waited?  Are you a Smart Ass?  That is the challenge!

“Timing is everything for the true Smart Ass.”  🙂

What’s your favorite board game?  I try to always buy a new game for our annual New Year’s get together – so looking for fun suggestions.

My other “son” Jake (Hendy) and I are total champs at Cranium and Pictionary.  Julie typically kicks our asses butts at ImagineIFF.   And PLEASE don’t ask me about Awkward Family Photos!!  Oh I do stink at that game!  I always feel so sorry for all the awkward ones….  🙂  And we have beat Cards Against Humanity to death.  (right Oh Rob?!)

So other than that….. we’re just makin’ memories of smart asses and dumb asses ’round these parts these days.

That’s what’s happening here at Life in Between….

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi