Week 14 (game night) Scattergories Categories

 Another game night! (I grew up in a game playing family- so I really enjoy playing games) I played Scattergories. So when I was researching games Scattergories Categories caught my eye.  I only had so much money budgeted for my 52 stay-at-home date nights. So I crossed it off my list as there were other games that I wanted to buy instead. I ended up finding this game practically brand new at the through the used Amazon section for a couple of bucks! Yay!

For those who are familiar with Scattergories it is similar but has a different twist that I really liked. Instead of sticking with one letter to answer all of the topics (S- Street Names, Girl Names, Type of Clothing) you get one category but have different letters to use. (MARRIAGE M-minister, A-aisle R- Rice, R- Ring,etc.). The first one to 25 points wins. It is a good game for 2 people, but more would make it harder as if you have the same response on the same line it does not count. 

After the 4th round, Jadae and I both ended up with 25 points! So we played one more, which he ended up with my points than I did. It was fun and a shorter game. We could have played more rounds but we both were tired. I enjoyed not having to think of so many different topics using the same letter. It was great just having one topic at a time. Jadae and I had lots of laughs over some of our responses. And some of then definitely were stretching it.

One downside to this is the timer. Because it was sand type someone would have to keep looking up to check to see if time was up. But you can easily use your phone to set a timer or just have a set amount of rounds to go through and the one with the most points wins!

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks

Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1.   Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2.   Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3.   Week Three- Art Night!
4.   Week four- Deal or No Deal

5.   Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6.   Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7.   Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8.   Cruise!
9.   Week 9- (Game) Star Fluxx
10  .Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island
11.  Week 11 (game) Forbidden Desert
12. Week 12 (art night) Picasso Playdoh
13. Week 13- Puzzle and Pillow Talk Conversations

Week 13- Puzzle and Pillow Talk Conversations

     For our stay-at-home date night this week we put a puzzle together. I found this Sat Wars puzzle at the Dollar General Store. It actually contains two 100 piece puzzles. All of my sons and my husband is huge fans of Star Wars so I know this puzzle will be loved. I was not sure how many pieces I should buy. It has been a long time since I put together something more than a board puzzle or a small 24-piece young child's puzzle. It took us less than an hour to do one of the puzzles. We decided to save the other one for another time.

While we worked on the puzzle I took the opportunity to have us answer some questions that I got from The Dating Diva's website. They are Conversation starters that they affectionately named "Pillow Talk". There are over 50 questions. Some of the ones we got during our date was "Would you want to go back in the past or in the future?", "What does your dream car look like?", etc. Those are some of the ones we had that night. There are a lot of really good ones that we never got to such as, "What was something that you worried about today?", "What was the most frustrating part of day?", and "What are you most excited about tomorrow"  You can download the questions from the link above for free. I highly recommend it! They are a great way to talk about your day, concerns, worries, etc. with your spouse or loved ones. The Dating Diva's recommend just doing a few every night with your spouse when you go to bed (hence the name "pillow Talk" to reconnect.

Here is our completed puzzle!

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks

Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1.   Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2.   Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3.   Week Three- Art Night!
4.   Week four- Deal or No Deal

5.   Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6.   Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7.   Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8.   Cruise!
9.   Week 9- (Game) Star Fluxx
10  .Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island
11.  Week 11 (game) Forbidden Desert
12. Week 12 (art night) Picasso Playdoh

Week 12 - (Art night) Picasso Playdoh

It was time for another art stay-at-home date night. I intended for us to have an art night earlier in the month but I was not sure about what art project Jadae and I should do until recently. We played with play-doh! Jadae's sister and her children had spent the night so we invited his sister to join us.

Jadae's face

Jadae's alligator

The "assignment" was to make Picasso faces. Jadae was not a huge fan of it and after he made one face he switched gears and just made animals and other such things. His sister made a face or two then just played. I really enjoyed making the faces! Working with play-doh is surprisingly relaxing. I am not a big fan of the smell though!

Sara's face

Sara's Rose

For whatever reason half the children (we had 6 here!) was not tired and eventually wandered out of the bedroom to see what us adults were up to. They were quite confused as to why us adults were playing with play-doh when all the kids were in bed. 

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks
Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1.   Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2.   Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3.   Week Three- Art Night!
4.   Week four- Deal or No Deal

5.   Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6.   Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7.   Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8.   Cruise!
9.   Week 9- (Game) Star Fluxx
10  .Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island
11.  Week 11 (game) Forbidden Desert

Week 11 (game) Forbidden Desert

I invited my sister to join us for our stay-at-home date night this time. We decided to play a game and with having an extra brain we figured we would be able to understand the instructions better. Jadae opened up "Forbidden Desert". It is a co-operative game, where you work together to win. About half-way through the game we really started to discuss what our next moves should be before we took our turn instead of just taking our turn independently. Once we started to do that we started to win! You really have to work together or you all will lose and die. I really like the concept of these kinds of games. You are not just looking at your own best interests or what would benefit you but everyone around you.

(this post contains an affiliate link)

I have not played any of the co-op games yet but I have heard high praises about them. The premise of "Forbidden Desert"" is your team's helicopter has crushed in the desert, which happens to be an ancient city that is buried under sand. This city has pieces to an solar-powered flying machine that are buried under the sand. 

The board of the game is made up of tiles. The tiles are constantly being moved around due to sand storms. Once one digs up all the sand and excavates the tile it gets flipped over to the city side. In order to win you have to find all the pieces of the flying machine and everyone has to get to the landing dock. You find the flying pieces by clearing the sand and flipping over the cards, hoping that they will revel where the pieces are buried. One you have collected all 4 pieces and everyone gets to the landing dock your team wins!

There are a total of 6 different characters. Each character has a special power that helps with the game. Some of the characters include an Archaeologist can remove two sand tiles at a time, while everyone else can only do one. The other characters are climber, explorer, meteorologist, navigator, and water carrier.

All the players are racing against time. After each turn you have to draw from the sand deck. There are several different cards in this deck. Most often a sand storm happens, which buries the tiles more in sand. The sun can beat down and deplete your water supply- which means you can die of thirst, or the severity sand storm can pick up so badly that you cannot get off the island and you end up being buried alive!

It wasn't until half-way through the game when we realized that we were making it more difficult on ourselves. During your turn you are allowed up to 4 actions. We originally thought that it meant you had to play the actions each only once per turn and you had to play in a certain order. The actions can actually be played in any order or more than once. But you are only allowed 4 actions per turn. The actions are very easy to understand and perform. The player can perform any combination of the following actions:

1) move to another tile (you just can't move diagonally
2) removing sand (from your own tile or one adjacent to your tile)
3) if there is no sand on the tile you are on you can excavate it by flipping it from it's desert side to the city side. The city side has several different actions; gears (which are very helpful and can be played at any time), water!, or a clue to where a piece of the flying machine is
4) Pick up a part- if the tile is not under sand and you have both clues to a part of the flying machine, and are on the matching tile you can pick up a part
This game also plays really well with only 2 players! 

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks
Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1.  Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2.  Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3.  Week Three- Art Night!
4.  Week four- Deal or No Deal

5.  Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6.  Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7.  Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8.  Cruise!
9.  Week 9- (Game) Star Fluxx
10.Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island

Week 10- (movie) Nim's Island

Our movie of the month was "Nim's Island". Neither Jadae nor I have seen it. I picked this movie after Jadae said he was not interested in seeing "Castaway". I wanted a movie about people who are deserted on an island in spirits of our recent cruise.

"Nim's Island" is a cute movie about a 11 year old girl and her father that live on deserted island in the South Pacific. Nim's father, who is a microbiologist, goes out to sea for what was suppose to be only couple of days while Nim stays on the island to help care for the sea turtles that were hatching. While her father is gone Nim's favorite actor writes to Nim and her father to get help with the newest adventure book that is being written. The author, Alex Rover, ends up coming to the island to help Nim as she had gotten hurt and she could not get a hold of her father who had been gone longer than anticipated. Nim also wanted Alex's help because Nim believed that pirates were coming to invade her island after looking through her telescope and seeing a ship, "Buccaneer Landing". I am not going to share what happens, I will let you find out by watching it yourself.




After the move Jadae and I discussed what we would bring with us if we (our family included) were stuck on a deserted island. I decided that shelter and methods to hunt for food would already be taken care of.


Jadae
1. Bible 
2. Solar Power capability
3. Water/shock proof kindle full of his favorite Bible resources and books
4. Art Supplies
5. I-Pod or something to listen to music with Satellite radio/phone capabilities

My List
1. Bible and Journal
2. Our collection of board games
3. Laptop with unlimited Wi-Fi to FaceTime people from home and to watch YouTube instructional       videos
4. Our library :)
5. Medical and Hygiene Supplies

52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks
Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1. Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2. Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3. Week Three- Art Night!
4. Week four- Deal or No Deal

5. Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6. Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7. Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8. Cruise!
9. Week 9 - (game) Star Fluxx

Fervent- Your Past

I had planned on posting about the each section of Fervent as I read it, but life happened. I do want to post about the chapter on your past (chap. 5) because of how impactful it was on my life. I recently started meeting with someone I asked to be my mentor. I had shared with her some of my past sins and current ones that I was struggling with. "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." (James 5:16)

She asked me if I had forgiven myself. I hadn't. I know that God forgives. I had asked Him to forgive me; I knew in my head that He did but my heart was having a hard time accepting it. That night I was really beating myself up about it. The next morning I looked up scriptures on forgiveness.
"But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." I John 1:9


I also read the next chapter (chap. 5) in Fervent. It was about your past. How timely! The introduction really opened my eyes and hit me. Yes, Satan does this to me!
"If I were your enemy, I'd constantly remind you of your past mistakes and poor choices, I'd want to keep you burdened by shame and guilt, in hopes that you'll feel incapacitated by your many failings and see no point in even trying again. I'd work to convince you that you've had your chance and blown it- that your God may be able to forgive some people for some things, but not you..not for this." (pg. 93) 

Instead of feeling and celebrating God's grace and forgiveness I felt shame and undeserving. This chapter reminded me then and now, almost a month later, that instead of feeling guilt and shame and guilt I should be celebrating all the grace that God has given me! And that it should bring me closer to God not make me feel like I should be running in shame from Him like Adam and Eve did. 

I still struggle with sin (who doesn't?). I need to be remembering that God's grace is freely given and when I mess up I need to turn to God instead of the wanting to hid from Him. Satan loves to rewind scenes from my past (even as recent has yesterday) in my head taunting me with them, even though I have confessed them to God.  It is a hard thine accepting forgiveness. I forgive others easily. I just need to learn how to forgive myself!

Week 9 (Game) Star Fluxx

My baby brother is staying with us while he is on spring break this week and next. So we invited him to join us in our weekly stay-at-home date night.

Jadae is a big sc-fi geek! He loves Star Wards, Star Trek, etc. So I got Star Fluxx from Amazon knowing that he would enjoy it. (We already own Family Fluxx and Wizard of Oz Fluxx). Fluxx is a game where the rules always change and how to win the game (by achieving the goal) changes also. I like certain sci-fi movies (such as Back to the Future) but I really am not into Star Trek. I did enjoy this game though and know enough about a lot of the sci-fi genre that I got the cards and they made me smile!



Because of copyright infringements Looney Labs (the creators of Fluxx) had to be creative with some of their cards. For example, in Star Trek the men who wear red shirts always end up dying- in this game that is a keeper card and the card is called "The Expendable Crewmen".  The cards make reference to  references to Star Trek, Star Wars, Dr. Who, A Space Odyssey, Stargate, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and probably some others.

This version of Fluxx has some awesome extra abilities on some of the keepers. These make the game more interesting and fun! I will say that this version is not the best to introduce someone to Fluxx as there are more complex cards that the other versions do not have unless there are people playing that are familiar with the game.

Even though my brother joined us we still had fun! We ended up playing several rounds.  I can't remember who won. I know I didn't win any rounds though. But that is not what mattered.


52 Date Nights in 52 Weeks
Getting out of a rut- The post that explains why I started this journey

1. Week One- (movie) The Bucket List

2. Week Two- (game) Post Cards from North America
3. Week Three- Art Night!
4. Week four- Deal or No Deal

5. Week 5- Game Night (Chrononauts)
6. Week 6- Wii Game (Super Mario Maker)
7. Week 7- (movie) Tourist
8. Cruise!