Day 9 - Bunko!

Three and a half years ago, my friend Angie called and invited me to be a sub for her Bunko group. I was so excited. I felt like I'd been asked to enter a special club. My sister, Debbie, had been in a Bunko group (but they called it Bonko...weird) when she lived in Florida and it always sounded like so much fun. Anyway, thanks to Angie (and Kristin who started that group!), almost every third Tuesday for three and a half years I have rolled dice, eaten a yummy meal, and laughed and laughed with some great girlfriends. The original group fizzled out about a year and a half ago, so a couple of us started a group for our neighborhood. It has helped me get to know my neighbors a lot better and we've shared a lot of laughs.

"So what is Bunko?" at least one of my kids asks me every month. I'll tell you. It's played in groups of four. We have twelve people in our group and therefore three tables of four. It's a dice game. You roll three dice in rounds and try to get a different number each round. There is no skill involved. You tally the number of times you roll the desired number. When the high table reaches 21 points, they yell "Bunko!" and everyone stops that round and moves on to the next one. We all put in $5 to help buy prizes and everyone goes home with a prize. I'm a game girl, so the combination of visiting and a fun game with prizes is right up my alley.

I hosted Bunko tonight. Forgive me, Rochelle, I forgot to take photos. But we had a colorful and healthy meal with grilled shish-ka-bobs, green salad (Sharli's recipe, yum!), fresh fruit, and dutch oven potatoes (I have the best method to cook those on the grill in my enameled cast iron pot!). The best part about the presentation tonight was having the prizes on display. As the host, it is your responsibility to pick out and buy the prizes for the night. My prizes were fresh flower bouquets. Gorgeous! First prize got a huge bouquet of spring flowers, second place got a dozen roses, and then there were tulips, lilies, daisies, and single roses for the rest of the prizes. Beautiful! The prizes were so pretty I didn't even mind dishing out (but not eating) chocolate bundt cake for the group.

So if you want a fun way to create friendships with your neighbors, try Bunko. It's great fun. I know it gets a bad rap now and then. I'm not sure why, it must be from people who haven't ever been to our group!

(PS. In case you didn't know: Day 9 means it's the 9th day in a row I've blogged. I'm shooting for 33 days in a row because I took a 33 day absence.)