10 for 10 Update

We've been trying to do the 10 for 10, but it just doesn't seem to work that well for us.  But it does work well if we want to play through the expansions or something like that, but 10 is just too many. We just want to play too many other games!  And there is all Wall of Shame to try....

Anyway, here is our current tally:
Battle for Five Armies: 2
Carcassone: 10
Downforce: 8
Emiment Domain: 4
Near and Far: 8
Dice Throne: 13
Saint Petersburg: 1
Scoville: 3
Suburbia: 3
Viticulture: 9

We had New Bedford on here, but we ended up selling that game as we took it off.

10 for 10 Update

We are actually making some progress on our 10 for 10.  As you can see, 2 are done!

We also set out to play through two of our game "sets" - Academy Games and Ryan Laukat.  We've done 2 of the Academy Games and 4 of Ryan Laukat.

Battle of Five Armies	2
Carcassonne	10
Downforce	8
Emiment Domain	2
Near and Far	4
Dice Throne	13
Saint Petersburg	1
Scoville	2
Suburbia	2
Viticulture	4

The Wall of Shame....





Our wall of shame....its the middle shelf.  Its our New Year's goal....no wall of shame!  It has gotten out of control over the last year for various years (Area 51 going out of business didn't help us!). 

10 for 10 Update

Well, its halfway through the year and where are we?  Well, I broke my leg in March (AGH!!!), so that's slowed us down plus just work, but with summer coming on we are working on it!  We have completed 1 of our goal, which is actually 20 long because we each chose 10.  Plus we only have one left unplayed from the list.  So our current tally is:

1812: 1

7 wonders duel: 5

Artificium: 3

Carcassonne: 2

Carson city: 2

Dice city: 3

Dominion: 3

Eminent domain: 2

HP: 6

Imperial settlers: 2

Islebound: 1

Lords of waterdeep: 1

Powerplay: 3

Run, fight, die: 4

St. Petersburg: 1

Imperial assault: 11 (we finished our campaign! We are actually restarting this our son as well.)

Suburbia: 1

Ticket to ride: 4

Viticulture: 1

Warhammer quest

10 for 10 Update

So we figured out where we are on the 10 for 10 challenge.  We each have four that we haven't even gotten to the table.  With summer coming up, hopefully we should make more progress on this!

Ray:
1812: 1
Artificum
Carson City
Warhammer Quest
Powerplay: 3
Run, Fight or Die: 4
Eminent Domain
Imperial Assault: 9
Islebound: 1
Lords of Waterdeep: 1

Jennie:

Suburbia: 1
Ticket to Ride
St. Petersburg
7 Wonders Duel: 4
Carcassone: 2
Harry Potter: 6
Imperial Settlers
Dice City: 2
Dominion: 1
Viticulture

New Year's Resolutions

So last year we aimed to play through our collection and we did pretty good. We have a wall of unplayed still, but we have kept it down and it is mostly relatively new stuff.  This year our goal is 10 games that we'll play 10 times.  So this year we are going to quality and getting the numbers up there.

My 10 are:
7 wonders Duel
Carcassonne (I want to be able to say I've played all the expansions)
Dice City
Dominion
Harry Potter Hogswarts Battle (I want to get through all the decks)
Imperial Settlers
Saint Petersburg
Suburbia
Ticket to Ride (again, all the expansions!)
Viticulture

Ray's 10 are:
1812
Artificium
Carson City
Eminent Domain
Islebound
Lords of Waterdeep
Powerplay
Run, Fight or Die
Imperial Assault
Warhammer Quest

Pokemon

Well it happened....the Pokémon CCG entered our lives.  Andrew ADORES it. Like obsessively.  I told Ray that he got his mini gamer in Adam, and it seems he got his eventual Magic player in Andrew.  The hit of Christmas morning  - the Pokémon pack in his stocking. Seriously. 

 

As to the game - it isn't bad.  The deck building is set at 60 and is pretty standard.  The game also is just played to 6 KOs so that's much easier than the life points in Magic.  It really is Magic lite. 

They seller "trainer" decks and it worked really well for teaching the boys the game.

Thrifting Find

Our best thrifting find so far - Zooloretto for $5!

Travel Gaming

We worked on our "travel" games this summer!  The best one of the summer - Zombie Dice. We played it everywhere...including the park!

This is our travel pack!

This is our plane pack!

My summer souvenirs....

So we went to Fairbanks and Homer this summer.  So what did I come home with?  Ticket to Ride!! I found all the versions I didn't have that you can't easily buy anymore!!

 

Fairbanks

Kenai (on the way to Homer)

Baby Shower Gifts

What to bring to a baby shower?  Games, of course!  We gave games this summer - with handmade baby blankets and usually diapers.  But the baby is eventually sleeping and it is time to games with your spouse!  We gave all two player games that can be played by tired parents!

 

Recent Gaming

Our recent gaming has been focus on getting games off our "wall of shame," but here are a few from awhile abck.

Firefly - this is a pick up and deliver game and surprisingly good for a "name" game.

We told ourselves we'd play Monopoly - by the REAL rules - over Christmas.  We did...still not great, but hey, we finally followed the rules!

Puerto Rick - we had to proxy this to get a play in to test it. It is a good game....we just play San Juan so much more. 

2016 Resolutions

So last year we planned to get through 200 games - which we did!!  This year our goal is to have NO wall of shame!

Gaming Articles

These two recent articles caught my eye.  First, the best Thanksgiving games.  We actually played Scrabble and dice, but these are also good suggestions!  We played Pandemic Legacy on Black Friday.  Oh my goodness....SO GOOD!!!!  And I can't talk about it.....

Anyway, we played Scrabble on my father's old board - so awesome!

 



Starting a gaming collection - this is a great starting list! The game I haven't played is the Resistance, but Ray has.  A game like that is important though.  We own Spyfall.

Our "recycling" plan

 

So we "recycle" - we sell games to buy new ones!!  The Anchorage game store (Bosco's) stated having "swap" meets where you can rent a spot and sell your old stuff.  We took in some games we weren't enamored of and got enough to buy this pile!! Yah!!

 

With such a large collection, we constantly have to be going through and we are hoping they will keep up these swap meets and we can do this at least once a year as it really hard to try to sell games online due to shipping (and the Alaska thing).  We've done some online trading with our gaming networks, but even that has been quite a headache (setting up meetings, etc....they feel rather clandestine as well!).

100 different games!!

We've played 100 different games this year thus far!!! Yah!!

Enemies of Gaming...

So we watched this Dice Town Top 10 on the "Top 10 Enemies of Gaming," and a lot are typical things (like we have jobs....), but one was little animals...like this one!  She likes to get in the middle of our games....

New Games

Ray took a trip to visit his family in Michigan recently and was able to go to Origins in Columbus for the afternoon. This is what he brought me back.  He loves Origins (his second time there) and it is supposedly very family friendly so we are hoping to take the whole family in an upcoming year. 

Gaming Goals

So rather than traditional New Year's Goals, we set gaming goals.  We are trying to get through our gaming collection and making sure we can play all our games and getting rid of those we don't want.  So we set the goal of playing 200 games total and 100 DIFFERENT games over this year.  So it is April and so far we've played 60 different games, 92 total games.  Pretty happy with that!

Gaming Night Food

I am always looking for good game night food ideas.  I think things that are appealing to many people, easy to eat while playing  and hold up well to sitting around.  Obviously anything you can put in a crockpot and leave works well.   I often do meatballs.  I usually pre-make them (with moose meat...this is Alaska!), freeze them and then just plop them, still frozen, in the crock pot, with a jar of spaghetti sauce (I also toss in some Italian seasoning and sugar), for about 3-4 hours on high and I am good to go. I usually serve with mini buns. 

One of my most requested foods are my pizza puffs.  I love that I can put anything in them and I usually do a vegetarian version for my non-meat friends.  These also taste great at room temperature!

One of my new favorite are pepperoni 'n' cheese crescents.  These are also very versatile!

I also loves these chicken wontons, just they are little more futzy.  These bacon-cheddar pinwheels are much the same. 

I have more options, but these are what I can consider my "best hits," both with taste and ease of making.