Pulled Pork * Good Times * Tribond

In preparation for a very serious game night tonight, I slept 14 hours last night. Yes, you read that correctly....14 hours. I fell asleep at 8:30 last night (yes, on a Saturday night) and I woke up at 10:30 today. Don't judge me - I was completely exhausted. It was insane. Also, I knew I needed the rest if I was going to be playing a game with Justin and Alecia tonight.

If you think I'm a trash talker (admittedly, I am), Alecia is even worse! Yeah, Alecia, I'm calling you out! In her e-mail to me to confirm our plans tonight, I'm pretty sure she asked me "which game do you want to lose at Sunday night?"

So after church today, Katherine and I drove over to their house with a lot of game playing nerves. Heather and Jim were also there, so it was fun to see my neices and nephew. Before playing a game, Alecia and Justin fed us the most delicious pulled pork sandwiches and apple pie. I think this was part of their strategy - to make us lethargic and fuzzy headed from eating too much. After dinner, when we were choosing games, somehow the game that was chosen was Tribond - a game I am really weak at. Then they broke us up into "couples" which meant Katherine and I were a team. Another strategy as I see it. By saying "couples" they made Katherine and I feel bad that we didn't have a spouse and we had to be a "couple." This made us less focused on the game. Well played.

What we didn't know was that Justin and Alecia bought a new version of Tribond! We've only ever played the old version which is IMPOSSIBLE. If you've never played the game before, here's how it works: the cards give a list of three names or words and you have to determine what they have in common. The old version of the game was incredibly difficult. Here's a sample question:

Grete Waitz * Joan Benoit * Mike Gorman

Have you ever heard of any of those three people? Me either (they're all marathon runners). But the new version was much easier, with questions like:

Pinto * Wax * Mexican Jumping

Our only downfall was that Katherine and I never got a free move, while the other teams did. Sad. And my nephew was grabbing my arm for a long time yelling, "Wibis! Wibis! Wibis! Wibis!" (my name in 2 year old language) which was mildly distracting. But the game was very close. Very very close. We almost won. And while that might not be winning, it's about as good as it gets with Justin and Alecia.

Ok, now that I'm done with the game talk, I should say that we had a great time tonight. Justin and Alecia are great hosts, the food was delicious, and we had a wonderful time. Ruthie gets cuter every time I see her. And now that they have the new version of Tribond, I think we should get together again really soon.