Board Games and Appendix

It’s not often you see a family board game blog with “Appendix” in the title. But our board game family of 6 is now short 1 appendix.

Let’s just say it was quite the memorable 4th of July this year.

But let’s start at the beginning.

Fun family reunion

A couple of posts ago, we wrote about our upcoming family reunion and the tough choices of which family board games to take along. I’m happy to report that the choices were a success.

As expected, with 32 game in tow it wasn’t likely that every game would be played. But as long as we had options for whatever mood people were in, then it would work out well. And it definitely did that.

With a big family gathering, it was pretty clear that our first night together, Telestrations was going to kick off the fun. And it didn’t disappoint. In fact, Telestrations never disappoints.

Rather than run down a play-by-play of the rest of the week of activities and games played, we’ll jump right to the list of which family board games made it to the game table and which one was the big hit.

Total number of different games played = 21!
(a number of them were also played multiple times)

Games Played

While I didn’t get in on all these games, I still made sure to get my fair share in.

• Telestrations Party Pack
• 7 Wonders
• Kingdom Builder
• Pandemic & On the Brink
• K2
• Code 777
• Snake Oil
• Get Bit
• Gloom
• The Resistance Avalon
• Ligretto Dice
• City Square Off
• Clue
• Racko
• Scotland Yard
• Hanabi
• For Sale
• Ratuki
• Happy Birthday
• Gravwell
• Tenzi (my sister brought this one)

Games Not Played

Would have been nice to play…

• Ticket to Ride: Europe
• Memoir ’44
• Timeline
• Hive
• Martian Dice
• New World: A Carcassonne game
• Pirate Fluxx
• Spot It
• Yamslam
• Mastermind
• Nertz
• Oregon

Everyone had a great time hanging out with family and relaxing at night playing some family board games.

…until the 4th of July when Jaden woke up that morning feeling terrible and nauseous…

Appendix be gone!

Now comes the appendix part of the story.

It was a beautiful day at the lake and everyone was excited for the afternoon since we’d reserved a number of fun toys to play with: wave runners, kayak, paddle board, and a water trampoline. We took our time getting going in the morning and a few enjoyed some time on the mini-golf course as well.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, Jaden was still feeling terrible. With our rooms being so close to the lake, we didn’t feel like total loser parents and family by leaving him alone while we went to enjoy the lake without him.

We had a blast.
And perhaps Caleb had the most fun once he had a turn at driving a wave runner. Good thing he’s learned how to take turns, otherwise he would have monopolized one the whole time. (He repeatedly said he couldn’t wait for 5 more years when he’d be able to go out on his own on one.)

Of course, we also kept tabs on Jaden in the room – so bummed he couldn’t be in the mix.

But it wasn’t until during dinner that night that Jaden mentioned all the pain had centralized to one location. The symptoms then sounded a lot like appendicitis, so we called the clinic in town who suggested the best route was to get to the hospital for test.

So Michelle and Jaden headed down the canyon to Logan around 9 pm Friday night to the E.R.

(so much for fireworks) 🙂

It was pretty clear soon after arriving that his appendix was definitely “unhappy”. Around midnight, he was admitted to the hospital and awaited his early morning surgery.

By the time I got to the hospital Saturday morning, Jaden was already in surgery. So I missed wishing him well. But I was there when he was wheeled back into the room for recovery and sharing smiles.

The surgery went very well, the recovery was smooth, and he was released in the afternoon.

Wow – what a surprise 4th of July celebration!

And now, after a week of recuperation, Jaden is still doing well and is looking forward to getting back to full strength again soon.

The big hit board game

Let’s finish with another board game note…

The biggest board game hit of the week was found playing a game that none of us had every played before – Scotland Yard.

It’s a great board game!

And it plays up to 6 players – so our whole family can play! Bingo!

We played it a number of times and loved it every time.

It’s an older game that we’ve heard about many times. But it wasn’t until earlier this year that we got a copy in a board game trade. And we’re so glad we did.

We’ll definitely have to do a full review of Scotland Yard soon, but here’s the quick summary:

One player takes on the role of the criminal Mr. X, who moves around London unseen except for a few turns when he “surfaces”. The rest of the players are detectives working together to catch him/her by moving onto the same location where he is.

Every round begins with Mr. X moving to a new location. Mr. X writes his new location on a secret pad and then covers that location number with a mode of transportation token (taxi, bus, underground, or unknown). Each detective then gets to move to a new location – also using a mode of transportation.

The catch is that each detective only has a limited number of taxi, bus, or underground tokens. Their playing pieces are also always on the board so Mr. X can keep tabs on them and figure how to keep from getting caught.

Overall, Scotland Yard is a fantastic hidden movement game as well as a semi-cooperative board game. As detectives, coordinating movements is key to fencing Mr. X in and ultimately catching him. And as Mr. X, finding a way through the net is a fun mental effort with a good amount of tension.

At least that’s what I’ve been told from that side – because I have yet to get a chance to be Mr. X. But I’m definitely looking forward to my chance. Maybe later today…

Yep – we’ll definitely recommend Scotland Yard as a great family board game.