Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween y'all! 

We've been celebrating Halloween all week long.  Last night, it was the barrel racing association's annual costume contest.  I believe Squeaks and my horse looked pretty darn cute.  I made their costumes.  I know, I know.  I'm great. 

And not only did my horse look good, she ran good too.  I finally landed in the pay window.  $42.  It's been a while since I've won money.  But that's the way it goes when you're away from home for almost four years.  With us being home since August (for Mav's away rotations), I've been riding nearly every day.  Riding consistently sure does pay off.  Literally. 

Poor Sport

I'm sometimes a poor sport.  So what.  Tell me who isn't?  At some point, someone will show unsportsmanlike conduct.  Even the most mellow people will do it.  Really.  It's only a matter time.

Let me explain.  For Easter, I played the Easter Bunny.  (By the way, Happy Easter!)  Squeaks got an adorable, super poofy dress, sunglasses, and a baseball glove with velcro to help her learn to catch.  Mine and Mav's basket was filled with a movie and a card game.  It was simple.  I'm not sure why some people go to crazy Christmas-birthday-elaborate attempts for Easter.  Maybe I'm the only one who feels this way.  Anyway, our movie was Bruce Almighty.  I explained to Mav that at Christmas we get Christmas movies and Bruce Almighty was the closest thing to an Easter movie that I could find.  It has God in it, right?  Our card game, Monopoly Deal.  We played it with friends a while back.  It was a lot of fun.  And we are always looking for good games to play. 

I'm warning you now, do not get this game to play with just you and your husband.  It causes fights.  Big fights.  Mav actually went straight to bed after I threw my cards at him.  For a second time.  This is where my unsportsmanlike conduct comes in.

Really.  I'm actually mad that the kid is a genius.  I hate him for it.  It makes me mad.  And it really makes me mad when he beats me in stupid, simple games like checkers.  In school, he was the punk kid who sat in the back of the class, hardly paying attention.  I was in the front row trying to listen to everything.  Come test day, he's the kid who scores 120% on the test, which throws off the curve, making kids like me fail regardless of how hard we try.  It's not fair!  And once again I got beat by the smart kid! 

This game really is fun to play with a group.  We like it because unlike Monopoly, it doesn't take 20 hours to play instead it's about 20 minutes.  But when it's just two players, there is only one person to steal properties and money from.  That is not a good thing.  Personally, I don't like being screwed with on purpose and that's what this game encourages.  Stealing and screwing other players.

Now, we do have some awesome marriage friendly games that don't result in couples sleeping in separate rooms.

For a group we recommend:

• Pirates of the Caribbean Dice Game
• Farkle
• Catch Phrase
• Dicecapades

For just the two of you but still super fun with groups, we highly recommend:

• Ticket to Ride- US version with 1910 expansion pack and the Dexter & Alvin expansion
• Carcassonne with the Princess & Dragon, Inns and Cathedrals, The River, and Traders and Builders expansions.  
• Sequence

We have spent a lot of playing Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride.  We actually got Carcassonne for Christmas two years ago.  We seriously played it almost every night for two or three hours or until we were too tired to see anymore.  Then we got Ticket to Ride and it was the same thing.  Now, all our neighbors and friends are addicted.  They are such good games.  We haven't bored of them yet.  

Maybe to avoid the fights, we'll have to stick to Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride with just the two of us playing. 

Do you know of any other games that are couple friendly?  Or maybe ones that aren't?  What are your favorites?

Jump on the Bandwagon

When we were thinking of where to apply for medical school, I came home from work to find Mav on the computer.  He had two internet pages up.  One was a list of medical schools and the other was Major League Baseball teams.  I laughed and told Mav, "We are not making our selection based on where teams are."  We ended up in St Louis, home of the Cardinals. 

We first hated everything about St Louis.  It is the exact opposite of our hometowns.  But St Louis has grown on me, or at least the Cardinals have made St Louis bearable for the two of us.

Mav is Mariners fan.  I am a Red Sox fan.  But we are alarmingly close to becoming official Cardinal fans.  We went to Game Four of the National League Wild Card Series.  We paid 100 bucks to go.  It was worth every penny.  We were on our feet with the rest of the stadium, nearly the whole game.  Now, they're in the Division Series.  We have tickets to Game Five on Friday night.  I didn't even blink at the $220 price tag.  We are totally stoked.  And I have completely jumped on the bandwagon.

GO CARDS!!