“…never before has a boy wanted more!”

(Apologies in advance if I get that little meme stuck in your head.)

Yes, we’re back from our family Spring Break trip to Bolivar Peninsula. And yes, everyone had a great time.
Daphne in particular, as it was warm enough for her to actually go into the water without freezing to death. (The LAST TIME we went down there the temperature didn’t rise above 50°.)

But this time it was in the mid 70°’s, and so we braved the tiny surf of Galveston for her first non-pool swim outing.

We started with just some basic puddle stomping near the shore…

But soon, that wasn’t exciting enough, and so we graduated to wading into the surf.

We played in the water for over an hour, running back and forth between the shore and out into the wavelets, until her little lips were turning blue and we headed back to the house where she napped, and napped hard, for a few hours.

That evening saw us doing our usual board and card game thing, and we came across some really good ones, and some “meh, this is okay” ones.

The first one, Cockroach Poker, was somewhere between those two.

It was VERY simple to play (the only similarity to actual poker is that it’s a game played with cards) and makes for a pretty good family game…pending said family is willing to lie, lie, and lie some more, right to one another’s faces.

The next game was The Mind.

I picked this up at PAX and I was really excited about playing it, but the general consensus was that it fell squarely into the “meh” category. Alas, the game is nothing more than a deck of cards numbered 1-100, so I can’t really argue much with that opinion. Although Jen and I played a round and both really liked it, so it might’ve just been the setting that wasn’t quite right.

We also played Monikers, which came highly recommended…but I think we all found to be kinda “meh” as well.

It’s part 64,000 Pyramid, part charades. And honestly I think we were all a bit to sober to really get into it. Another time, perhaps.

Quacks of Quedlinburg is another game I just picked up a few weeks ago.

Quacks is a push-your-luck game where you add ingredients to a bag and pull them out blindly in an attempt to make the best potion possible without the ingredients becoming volatile and exploding. It was a bit rules-ey at the beginning, but after a while we all got the hang of it and the game became a lot of fun. And this despite my potions CONSTANTLY exploding, prompting a subsequent string of obscenities at being forsaken by the laws of probability.

And finally we played Red Flags…

This was an interesting game about horrific dating partners that was indeed pretty funny, but it was the last game of the night and so it felt like it dragged on a bit too long. (I think 4-6 players is probably the wheelhouse for this one.)

The following day, Daphne returned to the water for more playing…this time with mommy in tow.

As I said, she had a fantastic time…as did we all.

And I’m afraid that’s where I’m going to leave you for now, as I’ve another new editing project that just arrived and I need to get started on it.

See you soon,

j.s.