2/25/2008 - Nertz and Salsa
Last night Tiffany, Shaun, Audra and I played Nertz again. :) I made dinner for us and my parents and my grandma, with the help of my mom and Audra using a couple of recipes from the Veganomicon. We made two dishes, Baja Grilled Tempeh Tacos and Mexican Millet. I think they turned out great. Very tasty. I had some leftovers for lunch today. Yummm... Cooking took longer than I expected so we got started playing late as usual and played until midnight--ridiculously late for Tiffany and Shaun who have to get up early for work. It was really fun, though. Audra killed us completely with 290 points, and I was in last place until right before the end when I passed up Tiffany by just a few points--99 to 94. Shaun was right in the middle, with 165. So, Audra's currently the one to beat when the four of us get together, although Tiffany and I would be glad to beat Shaun as well! ;)
2/23/2008 - Late Night Cards
Lately I've been addicted to a card game called Nertz, a kind of competitive as-many-players-as-you-want solitaire, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure why I like it so much, 'cause I almost always loose, and it's one of those fast games that I'm usually not any good at. But yeah, I really like it. And my friend Audra and my sister and Shaun like it too. Last weekend Audra came over to their house and we had pizza and played Nertz until some ridiculous hour in the morning. It was a blast. Shaun and Audra are both really good, and this time Shaun beat Audra by just a little while both of them creamed Tiffany and I big time. It was still a blast though. I really enjoy sitting around playing games, drinking coffee too late and night and just having fun hanging out with friends and family. I'm excited that we've found a game we all like and can play despite not always having a certain number of people--like the ever elusive four that we're always looking for so we can play Canasta!
Tiffany and Shaun and I played again last night. We were planning to get together to go see Jumper, so we met up and went out to this restaurant we love called Wei Wei, and still had a bunch of time before the movie started at 10:20. So, not having my cards 'cause they were in another car, we bought a couple more decks and started playing Nertz before the show. We were having so much fun we seriously considered skipping the movie and continuing our game. In the end we decided to go to the movie and think about playing more afterward--even though it would be after midnight! Well, we went to the movie, enjoyed it, and were all up for playing more after. So we played from 12:30am to 2:00am when we cut ourselves off. I was ahead the whole night, which was totally amazing, but in the last two games Shaun pulled ahead and beat me 257 to 240. Oh well. Like I said, I always loose, but I love playing. I heard rumors from my sister that Audra might join us again this Sunday night! Fun stuff. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had Fidel Castro with us last night as well, although he didn't play. He's retired now, you know.
2/19/2008 - Tubing at Trillium Lake
Last Saturday I had a blast going sledding and tubing with my sister Tiffany, her husband Shaun, my neice Allie and my sister's friends Anne and Jenn and their husbands Nate and Jason. I had been wanting to go up to the mountain sometime with Allie so she could play in the snow. I thought she would have a blast, and as you can see from the photo, she did! Check out the slideshow for more photos and to read about the trip. :)