Day 14 - Skunked

We played games with my sister Tauni and her husband Justin tonight. Before I tell you how it ended, you need to know a bit of history.

Greg and I have always been game geeks. The first years of our marriage we loved playing Risk with our neighbors in the good ole Aggie trailer court. Then, eleven years ago, our friend Kim introduced us to a far better game, Settlers of Catan. It's a great strategy game with plenty of player interaction. I don't think we've ever bothered playing Risk since then. We've gone through two sets of cards for our Settlers game and bought a few expansion packs along the way. The first time we played Settlers with our friends Matt and Heidi, we were on vacation and stayed up all night long playing four consecutive games. Our game geekiness hasn't stopped with Settlers. We own a lot of strategy games and love playing them.

When my sister Tauni was dating her husband, Justin, we began the best Sunday ritual. Tauni and Justin would come over Sunday evening, Greg and I would put our kids to bed, and then the four of us would play games. We dabbled with a lot of different games, but our standby was Settlers. One of the most fun aspects of this game playing foursome is that we all really want to win. Sure we joke and visit, but we're all paying close attention to the game as well. Justin and Tauni have dubbed playing with us as "The Major Leagues." Playing with other couples is just minor compared with playing against Greg and Biffy. I love it! It makes me laugh and feel smug at the same time. When we played every Sunday, we lived about 10 minutes away from Tauni and Justin. Now that we live an hour away from each other our game nights are rare. But tonight was a game night in the major leagues.

You need to know one more aspect of my game playing history. Greg wins a lot and lately it's really been getting my goat. We play Hearts with the Greens a lot and I am always amazed at how Greg is keeping track of all the cards that have been played. [Side note to Heidi and Greg: I totally was going to shoot the moon every time last time!] I hate losing to Greg. It feels like I am close to winning and there he is, two steps ahead of me every time. Ooooh! Drives me crazy! He's a gracious winner and everything, but still. I love beating him fair and square and my victories have been elusive of late.

So tonight was game night. We started out with a new game Greg gave me for Christmas, Agricola.

Tauni and Justin have only played this game once before tonight, so I wasn't expecting them to win. I was pretty much playing to beat Greg. But there he was, a step ahead of me the whole time. I was trying hard not to get frustrated and be a poor sport, but dang it! He totally killed me. I knew he was going to win, but I really thought our scores would be closer. [side note: If you don't like Settlers of Catan much, you would hate Agricola. If you love Settlers and have some patience with lots of rules, you'll love Agricola.]

After getting tromped in Agricola, we played Settlers of Catan with the Cities and Knights expansion. If you haven't played with that expansion, come over and try it sometime. More rules, more challenging, and most of the time, more fun. I had the best plan to come from behind and surprise everyone with my amazing win. And then Greg happened. That turkey! Twice in one night - I'm utterly humiliated.

Of course when I said later, "I've got to go post on my blog. What am I going to post about?"

He immediately replied, "How about how I totally destroyed you twice in a row playing games tonight?"

You better watch your back, darling, because this girl is out for revenge!