BONUS: Fourth of July Gaming with Family

 We were with family today celebrating American Independence Day.  We hadn't been to Tony and Stacey's house in 8 years or so, but some things never change.  One of the first things I saw when I walked in the door was a recently-finished game of Pinochle (below), after which I noticed the selection of games set out on the coffee table (above).  Oh yeah, this was set up to be a very good day!  Some games we played are also on our shelves.  Some were new to us, and we always love learning new games!
 A group played Skull King (a game on our shelf that I'll post more about later).
 A couple of rounds of Mine Shift were played.  I didn't get a chance to play this one, and it's not one we have.  It looked really good, though - seemed to be a matter of placing pieces and rotating tiles in order to force certain positions - I think.  This is one I'll have to try.

A new one for me was Bohnanza, in which the resources are bean fields that you are planting.  I enjoyed it but would like to play more, as one game of it wasn't quite enough for me to develop a strategy, and I can see that strategy would make a significant difference here - even though luck of the draw is a significant element as well.



Another game I played is from our shelves - Codenames: Words.  At home we've been playing more with the picture version rather than the word version.  It was a good challenge to play the word version again.
 Caleb wanted us to play a game that the whole group could be part of at one time, so we played The Name Game.  Everyone writes down the name of a famous real or fictional person.  These names are shuffled and then read out, and you go around the circle guessing who wrote what name.  When you get someone's name right, you "collect" them for your team.  The last person whose name was not determined - the single uncaptured person - is the winner.
 And the cousins even played an OUTDOOR game (Spikeball) before the fireworks began.  It's good to have cousins back together again!  It's good to all be back together again! :-)

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