Taco Salad and Scrabble!

April 30, 2017

Last week Josh Ellinor and John Ortiz came over and since there were four of us I pulled down a game we've never played on a Saturday night - Scrabble!

 So we fixed ourselves Taco Salads or Tacos (whichever was preferred) and ate dinner. Josh shows off his colorful work of culinary delight. But, do you notice what else he is showing off? And no, that isn't taco sauce on his upper lip! He's actually sporting a new mustache!

And this is my work of art...oh, I guess you're too late...I ate it already!

Yvonne is eating nachos....well, tortilla chips with melted cheddar cheese.

And then we went to the game. I think you can tell the level of enthusiasm from the looks on the guys' faces...

But as we began to put words on the board the intensity and competition came out!

Josh finally won with the word "RIN" a Japanese coin. Yvonne and Josh were so close!

Then it was time to call it a night!

Sunday we had chicken, roasted potatoes, and green beans. Dessert was cinnamon rolls. Just after we ate, the door bell rang and Ruth Davis was standing there! Ruth is Andrew Davis' mom. She was bearing German cookies to boot! We had a nice time catching up with her. She and Mike came to visit Andrew when he was staying with us way back in 2009. She and Mike are really active in supporting our troops in Illinois.

By now you know me...I have to have pictures. Words alone just don't seem enough. Here are a couple of pictures of Ruth and Mike when they were here back then and Andrew too playing Attack Uno!

Do you notice anything unusual about Mike's face? Yup! He has a mustache! :) I just had to point that out!

Lamb Gyros and Logos (The Board Game)

April 22, 2017

No, I didn't misspell the word Lego. There is a board game called Logos. It's basically a trivia game that finds out how familiar you are with the advertising and logos associated with common products you use all the time! It's fun, and there are so many times that you feel like slapping yourself because you should have known that.

But, before we played the game we ate! Yvonne took the left over lamb from Easter Sunday and made Gyros! And yum were they good! Yvonne even looked up the recipe and made the tzatziki sauce.

And for dessert we had Klondike bars! What would you do for a Klondike bar?

Can you tell everybody was busy eating??? Then we played!

Guess who won the game? Todd, you are such a card!

Since I am terrible at taking selfies Bethany stepped in and helped me out. She really makes the picture much prettier than I would have alone! That was the mustache picture for the week too!

RISK! The Game of Global Conquest

April 15th

Tonight it was Josh, John, Yvonne and me again. We pulled out our RISK game tonight. We haven't played that game in ages! I took Yvonne out of the game and got her cards, which gave me a bunch of new armies.

And then John took me out, which gave him a lot of new armies. That left Josh and John to battle it out! If you look at the board you can see there's pretty much only one color left.

Then John moved through Asia and conquered Josh. Just check out the major wall of armies, cavalry, and artillery that swept across Asia in the right side of the picture. John came, he saw, and he conquered!

Josh , good sport that he is gave the victor's trophy to John.



And finally, we have the mustache picture of the week. It's actually starting to curl up on the ends now a little bit. But boy! Do I have to lose weight! I'm not liking that chin.

Andrew's Birthday and Going Away Party

April 1, 2017

OK, this is probably the hardest part of our ministry - saying goodbye to our sons and daughters! Andrew Raffety is leaving. He's saying goodbye to active duty and opening a new chapter in his life - heading to the university.

So, since Andrew's birthday was on April 2nd, we had a birthday party for him. Yvonne asked him what he would like for his birthday meal and he said it didn't matter. But when she asked what kind of cake he wanted, well right away he said "Your cinnamon rolls!" He really likes the Civil War era so we gave him a book on the...yup! You guessed it - the Civil War.

Bethany and Cristian were here too!

We played Settlers of Catan again...can you tell that's one of our favorite games? Cristian Fabela won!

Here's Cristian admiring his trophy...

And, giving his victory pose!

All except for saying farewell to Andrew, it was a fun evening!

I was trying to take a selfie so I could post a picture of my mustache, but I am terrible at taking selfies, so Bethany came around and took one for me, with me!

Seeing Madison off as she deploys on the USS Leyte Gulf

This afternoon we were pierside again as we said goodbye to Madison and the USS Leyte Gulf. We told her Saturday night that we would come to the pier to say goodbye. We weren't sure if we'd see her or not. Yvonne and I were really glad when we walked up to the ship to see Madison standing on the brow waving to us.

She told us she would be a line handler on the aft end of the ship. So we went back and watched her work!

Last minute instructions from the big guy in the hard hat!

"See, those are the old people I told you about who invite me into their home on the weekends..."

"That's us she's talking about!"

Madison is the one handling the huge rope on the left. She's WORKING!

See you guys when we get back!

Casting off the lines from the pier.

Can you tell which one Madison is???

Then it was time for the tugs to move the ship away from the pier and out into the channel.

This Week It Was MONOPOLY : Electronic Banking!

This week Madison Cronin joined us for our Saturday evening game night. She even brought a game - "Speak Out!" but there were too many people here to play it. It looks really funny! So we all decided it was going to be Monopoly instead.

Monopoly: Electronic Banking doesn't use money. All of the financial transactions are done using a mobile ATM machine. You start out at the beginning fo the game with $15,000,000. Properties that used to cost a couple of hundred dollars inthe old version, now cost 1.5 to 4 Million dollars! Hey, that's inflation for ya.

Madison from the USS Leyte Gulf  is the one disguised as a Hollywood movie star that didn't want to be recognized! Can you tell which one that is??

John was well...let's say he was preoccupied! :) Josh was trying to highlight his new facial hair. Look close at his upper lip!!

Yvonne was really intense as she went for the dice! Andrew on the other hand??? He was busy!

Guess who won the game? I was the first one to go bankrupt! The game went really long! It didn't end until 10:30! That's an hour and a half past when we normally finish. But everyone was really into the game.

By this time in the game Yvonne owned all of the houses and hotels on the board.

Sunday Yvonne made our traditional annual Irish feast - Corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and carrots. Bread for the day was Irish Soda Bread.

After lunch we watched one session of Focus on the Family's "The Truth Project" 

and then, because it seemed to go along with that so well, we watched "God's Not Dead"

Ever Hear of the Board Game Called "Quelf" ?

We've had that game in our closet for years! This week we were trying to decide what we all wanted to play, and Tia saw Quelf on the shelf. She asked what it was and after describing it to her that was what we settled on.

 

We actually had time to play two games. Josh won the first one. See...Todd is crowning him with the trophy? The girls weren't too happy about that!

It was a real hoot! It makes you mime, act, draw, answer trivia questions, and even sing! But, if that isn't enough, there are also "Roolz" cards that you have to draw that make you sit under the table until your next turn, or make a sound like a flushing toilet whenever anyone gets penalized for something.

Everyone chose a character at the beginning of the game to move around the game board. Depending on which color space you landed on determined the color of the card you had to draw.

At one point in the game Andrew had to go into the bathroom until someone came to check on him. But he couldn't tell anyone where he was going or why.

Todd had to snort like a pig every time someone drew a card. But, couldn't tell anyone what he was doing. Weird!

Tia won the second game and I think you can tell the girls were much happier about that!

We had so much fun laughing and acting silly!

Settlers Settlers and more Settlers!

This week John, Austin, and Andrew joined us for our Saturday night activity. John challenged us to a game of Settlers...again! I think he loves that game! But so do the rest of us. Do you have any idea who won the game?

We didn't want to leave Andrew out of the pictures. He's getting ready to get out of the Navy and wow! Are we going to miss him!