Bursting with Canadian Pride and 2-player board games

Although this Monday morning isn't off to the smoothest start (late/restless night/busy morning) we had a wonderful weekend and I am swelling with pride at our Olympic team!! So proud to be Canadian today, and so proud of our athletes and especially our hockey players (male and female!) :) Once we knew that Canada was going to be playing for gold yesterday morning, we arranged a little brunch at our house and watched the game. Molly got a bit bored (and we played with toys and read books throughout the game), but she was excited to see the medals and flag at the end!

(Via CTV)

I'm a bit sad that the Olympics are over, and I think Twitter is about to get a bit boring for a few weeks until something else interesting happens!!

We were able to see some of Brian's extended family and a lot of my extended family this weekend too, which was nice. It's not every weekend that Molly gets so much family time! The weather here was warm, especially on Saturday, so we actually barbecued for supper that night. We also watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Ben Stiller (it was pretty good, actually! Cute message and great music) and played some board games on Saturday night!

(Walter Mitty quote - Source)

Today, I wanted to share some of our favourite 2-player board games. Brian and I have a lot of "date nights" at home, even though we are fortunate enough to have about 1-2 date nights out of the house each month when Molly is with her grandparents. Often, we just watch a movie or TV series on Netflix, and we enjoy that, but it's nice to change it up every once in awhile and do something a bit more interactive. We are both pretty competitive (in a fun way! haha), so games are right up our alley. Occasionally, we will play Wii (either Wii Resort Sports, Wheel of Fortune, or Wii Jeopardy), but we also have a few fun board games that are good for 2 people. We both love strategy type games, and I personally like games that don't necessarily take all day/night (I'm not big into Risk or Monopoly etc. etc but Brian likes those). There are tons of card games for 2 players too (such as Cribbage!) - but I'm not going to get into those. Here are some of our favourite games:

• Rivals of Catan / Catan Card game -  We have the Rivals of Catan, but I think the Catan Card game is similar (just not as readily available). I bought this awhile ago because we both love the Settlers of Catan games but they require at least 3 players, so we don't get to play them very often. This is a variation of the Catan games that goes by pretty quickly, and it is easy to learn, especially if you've played the full version of Settlers. For those unfamiliar with Settlers of Catan, it involves rolling a dice in which the outcome will provide you with cards or resources to "build" settlements and expand to get victory points. The winner achieves a certain number of points.

•  Rummikub - this is a very straightforward game, and mostly has to do with luck and keen observation. The goal is to get rid of all the number tiles in your hand by laying down sequences or 3 of a kind etc.

• Carcassonne - I bought this when we first started dating because I had heard that it was also a bit similar to Settlers. It's a pretty fun game, but it's totally different if you play with more than 2 people. We played it on the weekend for the first time in ages, and we easily got through 3 games in 90ish minutes (Best 2 of 3, and I didn't win - boo! haha). It's a really easy game to learn, but there are a few key strategy points that people pick up on over time. It's another "building" type game like Settlers of Catan.

Every Carcassonne board ends up being different, which is pretty cool!

• Sequence - we haven't played this one in awhile, but it's also really easy and just uses two decks of cards - you could even make your own board for it (which I think is the one we have - Brian's mom made it for him). It gets pretty fast paced towards the end. 

• Scrabble/Yahtzee/Othello - most people have tried these games before, so I don't feel the need to elaborate too much. We went through a huge Scrabble phase a couple of years ago and played it all the time. Yahtzee is fun too, but we get sick of it because it's almost 100% luck. Othello is a pretty easy game, but the winner is often determined early on in the game and it can be hard to make a comeback. 

And some we'd like to try sometime:

Pandemic

Lost Cities

Ticket to Ride - Brian has played this with a friend, but I have yet to try it...maybe it will make an appearance at a birthday sometime this year ;)

Stratego

Any fun board game recommendations for us out there?

I also LOVE playing Scene it movie trivia on the XBox, but I can only really convince Brian to play that with me about twice a year (and the game is currently "missing" in our house - hmm, I wonder who hid it? haha). I should also mention that we have a lengthy list of fun board games that we like to play with friends and family - a whole post about that is coming someday soon!!

Weekend recap and countdown to Valentine's Day

Happy Monday! Mine was most certainly a "manic Monday morning" because my alarm didn't go off and Brian is working from home today, so he didn't have his set either! Fortunately, I was driving instead of busing to work today, so I still got here on time but I was a bit rushed getting out the door!

We had a pretty relaxing weekend, but I am still feeling tired this morning after sleeping for 9-10 hours last night. We spent some time with my sister, time with my in-laws and had some friends over for board games on Saturday night. We played the Settlers of Catan which is Brian's favourite game in the entire world (I have a whole post on that coming soon), and I won! I don't usually win when we play Settlers, so that was fun! The game requires at least 3 players, so Brian and I don't get to play it too often and he is always really excited when someone comes over for a board game and actually wants to play Settlers (it's definitely not a game for everyone, even though it's pretty straightforward and really fun).

We also had a lot of rain and above zero temps,so a fair amount of our snow from the blizzard last week has melted and the roads are all clear today.

Today I want to share a few fun ideas for Valentine's Day for your boyfriend/husband/significant other. My husband and I don't really celebrate it, to be honest, and I definitely don't expect a lot from the holiday, but we like to do a few small things and maybe get some take out or something or have a date night around the 14th. I took a picture of the kind of flowers that I would like this year for the holiday, haha:

Yum, chocolate roses :)

This year, I am thinking of making something like this for Brian:

(Via The Dating Divas)

I think it would be a fun thing for him to have. The only problem I'm having is that he is on a health kick these days (which is GREAT), so I don't want to deter him by buying a bunch of chocolate. I was thinking of maybe getting just a couple of chocolate bars, maybe some other healthier snacks (or even a stick of pepperoni or something) and some other fun items that can be rolled up into "flowers" such as small gift cards.

I like this idea too with a 6 pack of beer instead of root beer:

Via Pinching your Pennies

There are tons more ideas for DIY candy bouquets here.

Another idea from one of my favourite blogs last week is to snail-mail your Valentine a card at his office. I am definitely planning to do this because he won't expect it at all, but it's not too over the top either. What a fun idea if you want to surprise your partner a little bit. You can find some cute card ideas here and here or on my favourite inspirational website, Pinterest.

I am also thinking of doing some Valentine's crafts with Molly because she loves hearts (but doesn't really understand Valentine's Day, obviously). Maybe we'll make some heart garland or something like that...I haven't decided yet! We're going to send Valentine's cards to my parents and siblings from Molly too, just to spread a little bit of cheer and share her crafty side. ;) I'm thinking of a card like this one:

(Via)

Here's the card tutorial I followed to make Brian's card last year, if you're interested. 

I think that's enough lovey-dovey talk for one day...but it is kind of a fun holiday!! We don't get a February stat holiday from work in Nova Scotia (until 2015), so it's nice to find something to celebrate in the middle of the cold winter. 

I have an entertaining (haha) Tuesday Tot Talk all about #1s and #2s planned for tomorrow so check that out if you're thinking of potty training soon!!