Time away from board games
As much as we enjoy playing board games as a family, we also enjoy doing a lot of other things as well. And for the last month we haven’t gotten in much game playing at all.
And that’s perfectly fine with me!
After all, no matter what you love doing, it’s great to take a break once in a while. (I love chocolate too – but I’m not going to eat it at every meal.)
Since I posted earlier this month about having played 92 different games so far this year, I’ve only played 5 games.
3 of those games were all last Sunday afternoon – Lords of Xidit, Power Grid (Central Europe), and Catch Phrase. And 2 games were the Sunday evening before that when we had a neighbor family over for dinner.
The fun thing about that night was the challenge to pick the right 2 games to play. Why? Because the mom is blind.
What board games would you play with a blind person?
We chose Wits & Wagers Family and Stipulations. And they worked out splendidly. Everyone had a fantastic time.
We played Wits & Wagers Family in teams, so our neighbor mom and dad were on the same team. He would write down their answer and they could easily discuss which answer they wanted to put their chips on.
But the one our neighbor family enjoyed the most was Stipulations. They loved the creativity in coming up with funny answers. Lots of fun.
But outside of those 2 days, we’ve been fully enjoying the last month of summer.
By August all of our scout summer camps, girls camps, business trips, and reunions had come to an end.
So we excitedly looked at all being home during the full month of August as a great thing and have taken advantage of it.
And Saturday capped off the final month of outdoor summer fun for me with something I’ve been wanting to do for years – hike to the top of Mount Timpanogos!
It’s the second tallest peak in Utah sitting at 11,752 feet!
Since we have a view of Mount Timpanogos from our front yard, the prominent mountain has been calling to me for a very long time.
My wife and I hit the trail with our next door neighbors at 5:30 am with our headlamps shinning the way for us.
We knew to get an early start on the 14+ mile round trip hike, but we hadn’t expected the trailhead parking lot to be completely full that early.
We soon found out why it was so packed because we passed over one hundred people on their way down as we were going up. They hiked early enough to be at the summit for the sunrise. Wow!
The view from the top of the mountain peak is spectacular!
But one of the things I loved the most about hiking it was seeing all the amazing views all along the way.
The hike to the top starts from the back side of the mountain and you don’t get a glimpse of the mountain peak until about half way up. By then you’ve already climbed and plateaued a number of mountain ridges – all of which have great views themselves.
On the way up, as well as on the way down, we passed the 73 year old man that has summited over 720 times!
We passed him twice because he was on his was down as we were going up. And then again as we were going down he was on his way up a second time for the day!
That second trip up marked trip #722 and his 5th for the week.
An article in the local news last year describes why he’s going so often, “He decided to continue to push himself by setting a goal of matching the number of hikes he did each year with his age.” Impressive!
Hiking to the top of Mount Timpanogos was a wonderful experience. And even though I can say I’ve checked it off my list, it’s going to stay on my list because I’m definitely going to hike it again!
We hope you’ve had a fabulous summer of fun with your family as well.
