I'm a Player

Happy Friday! We made it through another week!

As I said in my today's post title, I'm a player. A game player, that is. And certainly not in the realm of dating. Far from it, actually. But boy oh boy, do I love some friendly competition!! I have a new favorite game to tell you about - it's called Bananagrams. I alluded to it in my Christmas Recap post, and many hadn't heard about it so let me share this wonderful treasure of a game with you! Oh and Emily Jane, I am sorry to disappoint you, but it doesn't involve a person singing to me, dressed in a banana suit - but wouldn't that be wonderful!!!

So onto the game and how it works. It's quite simple. I like to describe it as Scrabble on crack or Scrabble for people with ADD. Scrabble is fun and all, but I get kind of bored when I am waiting for others to put their tiles down and form words. Well, there is no down time in Bananagrams. Each person basically makes their own little Scrabble board. Here are the basics:

• Each person draws 21 tiles - someone says split and you flip them over and start forming words. Similar to Scrabble, they have to all join together in some way.
• If you draw a dud letter and want to get rid of it, you say "dump" and put it back in the center pile of tiles and take 3 new tiles.
• When you have used up all of your tiles, you say "peel" and each person then has to draw a tile.
• You continue in this fashion until there are fewer tiles in the middle than people playing.

Here is an example of what your board might look like.


Ok, you probably won't have long, awesome words like this, but you get the idea. I totally rocked at this game when we played it over Christmas weekend but got my butt kicked when we reconvened for a rematch over NYE weekend.

Mandy of Knowing the Difference told me about some Bananagram exercise workbooks that Target carried so I bought them and sent one to my mom and sister since they both loved this game!! My Target only had 2 left so I couldn't buy one for myself but maybe I will treat myself to one for my birthday. They looked so fun and would be a great thing to throw in your purse and work on when you are waiting in line, riding the bus, etc.

So there you have it! If you like words - you will love this game!!

Oh, and here's a little bonus photo from our NYE weekend at the cabin. My dad is taking on Andrew, my 4 year old nephew in Candy Land.

I love the serious expressions on everyone's faces - it looks like they are solving the world's problems, not playing Candy Land. Even the 20 month old, Matthew, looks perplexed. It makes me smile. Oh how I love my dad & my nephews!

The funny thing is that my dad is colorblind... so this game is a bit of a challenge for him! Andrew had to keep helping him with the colors and then he turned to his mom and said, "Grandpa really doesn't know his colors very well!" I thought that was hilarious!!

Do you like playing games? If so, what is your favorite? My favorite kid game is probably memory, Candy Land, or Chutes & Ladders. I can't decide. I love them all! Some of my other favorite adult games are Apples to Apples, Balderdash, and Trivial Pursuit!