74 games!

On March 19 I started keeping track of the games we played with a goal of playing each game at least one time. Yesterday we played the last two games - the Whole Brain Game and Monopoly. We started 76 games, but we didn't finish two of them. The Trivial Pursuit game from the 90's was too dated and difficult for our kids. I donated that to Goodwill. The Bamboozle word game from the 90's was really a pitiful game in my opinion. I didn't even think it was worthy of donating to Goodwill. I put it in the garbage. I can't believe I hung on to that game for more than 30 years! Our monopoly game is in progress. Once we finish that game, we will have played seventy-four different games from March 19 to May 25! Some games were played multiple times over the past two months. Last Friday and Saturday Evanna and Nadia played a wide assortment of games that we had previously "scratched off" the list including Racko, Suspend, Jenga, Pente, Mancala, Jacks, Twister, Pick-up Sticks, and Bubble Talk. We also played Cranium for the first time while she was here. Part of the reason I made the list was because I knew the kids had never played some of the games and wanted them to play a wider variety of games as I figured they would find a few that they really enjoyed. Pente was one of the games Nadia and Ian played for the first time this month, and obviously she liked it because she chose to play it with Evanna. Pit is another game that the kids learned how to play during the quarantine that is now one of their favorites. Paul has many games that haven't been played for decades. The only one of his I put on our list was Pente. The list *could* have been quite a bit longer! As long as our calendar continues to remain empty I imagine we'll continue playing games more often than we usually do, but I'm done with keeping a list. 

The library we usually use is opening for curbside service next week. I am not sure why that county isn't allowed to move to the green phase this Friday as they've only had 56 total positive cases over the past 2+ months, but I expect they will be moving to green in early June. Reptiland is in that county so I expect that will likely be our first field trip. I placed a grocery order with Walmart this morning that I plan to pick up next Monday afternoon in conjunction with our first trip to our usual library since the middle of March. We have to wait until June 1 to put items on hold. This week we'll keep using our tiny local library. Having a few of the kids' friends over and curbside service at the libraries are two tiny baby steps back to normalcy. Now to find out this week what else will be permitted in the green phase. Church? Playground equipment? Amusement parks? We should find out over the next couple of days.