Family Game Nights

Do you have them? We do. They are not necessarily set for specific days, although we do go through phases that we have a specific day of the week, but happen randomly. That was last night. Last week I was away for a couple of days at our youth pastor retreat for our district. Kurt Johnston, student ministries pastor at Saddleback, came up to be our speaker. After our evening session was done, we all went to play games in the lounge. Kurt brought Monopoly Deal with him. That happened at one table, golf (the card game) happened at another table, wits and wagers at another and Risk at yet another. Lots of noise and laughter ensued.

We stayed up till at least 1AM both nights playing! It was so fun. Someone else went out and bought another deck of Monopoly Deal after the first night so more of us could play. Only 5 people can play at a time. It was a newer deck than Kurt's and it had a few extra rules and cards to it, but the essential play was the same.

I loved it so much I went home and bought a deck myself. I called Jeanne-Ann and discussed the plan for the evening and it included playing Monopoly Deal. After explaining the gameplay we got on our way. It was an instant hit in our family.It is pretty easy to pick up and each time you play it takes about 15-20 minutes.

Karston said, "I love this week! Each night we are doing something fun!" I love this week too! With the inclusion of reading through a God's Word with an Advent plan on youversion (thanx for the encouragement Bex. I will likely do a separate post on this later) we are really making some great memories this season.

Growing up, I lived in Norway for a few years and then my Grandparents moved into the place we lived. When we moved back to the States, we came back and visited in the summers. A tradition we had was family night on Saturday evenings. At the time, there was only one channel on TV in Norway and it only played from 6 - 10PM each day. On Saturday evenings there was always a mystery show or movie on TV.

In my memory, we would always come in for "kvels" and sit down and eat "Bestefar brød." This was home made bread my grandfather made from scratch. We would place various toppings on it(goat cheese, shrimp, meat, etc.) and then we each got a bag of candy. We would all sit and enjoy the mystery show and our meal. It was such a great memory that it brings joy to my heart just thinking about it right now.

My Bestemor og Bestefar (Grandma & Grandpa)

Do you have family game night? What are your favorite games?

Olympic Fever

Olympic fever has hit the Williams household hard. On Friday night we had our every-other-year Olympic-opening-ceremony-party at the Unwins. This is always a fun night with lots of craziness. This year we decided we should all bring food that represents the countries we are from. Steve made perogies (Polish), Jenga made German chocolate cupcakes, Brenda brought sushi (I had no idea she was Japanese, although I suspected it), The Condellos brought stuffed shells (Italian), Sean brought pizza (Italian?) and we made Norwegian waffles and mashed potatoes with hot dog pieces mixed in.

This was a seriously major display of food!




We loved the opening ceremonies. I particularly loved Mr. Bean. Man did I laugh. The combination with classic and digital age was great. Although it was very interesting that any videos people posted from inside the stadium was taken down off of youtube. Almost like, "Hey, we are celebrating social media and technology, but please don't use any social media/technology to let anyone else know." Kinda backwards thinking when you think about it.

That being said, our family is completely engrossed in the Olympics. I tweeted that I had lost my wife for the next couple of weeks. That is true, but I really am enjoying these Olympics! Misty & Kerrie. The redream team. Women's soccer! Runners (Go Ethiopia). Norway winning random events. Ryan Seacrest's fun side interviews (Phelp's sisters and mom). The stories behind the stories. The tears. The gut-wrenching awful moments when someone misses a parallel bar. Gabby. The tweets and USAToday app breaking news updates that come to my phone before an event is aired on TV (ugh).

I love it all!

The closing ceremonies will be a sad end to this exciting time. I'm proud to be a German born Norwegian-American with Ethiopian kids! It certainly is a fun time to share as a family too. We have been playing a lot of cards together with the Games on in the background, with pauses for the important moments.
Thanx world. Game on. Compete hard. Enjoy the victories. Pick yourself up in the defeats. Live fully in all you do!