Anticipation heightens the fun

The Board Game Family at Disneyland — Fun family trip with a lot of built up anticipation as well.

I love looking forward to fun events.
Imagining what an activity will be like gives me a chance to have fun and be happy long before it even takes place.

Disneyland for instance
We’ve known a few families that have surprised their kids with a trip to Disneyland out of the blue. Well, out of the blue for the kids that is.

The parents tell their kids that they’re going to visit family in southern Utah or something like that. But then they’d keep driving south into California and show up at the Disneyland gates – a total surprise for the kids. No doubt that’s a fun surprise to dive into. And the kids have a blast.

But for me, I love the fun of building it up for the kids.
I love talking about it way in advance.

Instead of a typical bedtime story, for a month leading up to a Disneyland trip every night while tucking the kids in I’d talk about a fun thing to do at Disneyland. I’d pick a different thing (ride, show, treat, souvenir) each night and tell them how excited I was to enjoy it with them.

Going to bed with a big smile on their face for weeks in advance was part of the fun of the trip.

And the same thing holds true for other fun trips.

Last month I had the chance to take our oldest son with me on a business trip to Chicago. It was a great few days having a fun time together. But it was also a lot of fun talking about it leading up to the trip itself.

Easy to Anticipate Big Events
Vacations are a good example of how much anticipation can extend the enjoyment of something. There are also a lot of other big events in life that we look forward to with great anticipation – weddings, graduations, jobs, baby births, birthdays, holidays, sports events, performances, and many more.

The Board Game Family in Chicago — Business trips are fun with a friend along.

But heightening our enjoyment through anticipation can work for small things too.

Even something as simple as dinner.
Sure it’s something we eat every day (hopefully). But that doesn’t mean we can’t build up some anticipation. I love knowing what’s for dinner early in the day so I can get my taste buds ready. And if steak’s on the menu, my taste buds will get a good workout.

Anticipating Game Night
Well, this week I’m really looking forward Guys Game Night.

A while back a bunch of guys in our neighborhood decided that, like our wives and their monthly Book Club, we needed some regular time together too. So we started our own monthly “Boys Book Club” – rulebooks that is. After a while we decided to ditch the cute name and just call it like it is – Guys Game Night!

Unfortunately, the summer months have presented a lot of conflicts with timing so it seems like we haven’t had a game night in forever.

But that’s not the only reason I’m excited for it this week.

The cool thing about this month is we’re having a Dominion Marathon!

Dominion Dark Ages card game — We’re ready for our Dominion Marathon at Guys Game Night!

Dominion was one of the early game hits with the guys at game night. With so many great board games out there, we wanted to play other fun games too. So Dominion took a back seat.

Then a few weeks ago, I bought a copy of another Dominion expansion – Dominion Dark Ages. And that’s when the idea for this month’s Guys Game Night came into focus.

All the guys with a copy of Dominion and/or an expansion or two will bring it to game night this week.

From the looks of things, we’ll have at least 4 games going at once. Sweet!

I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks and can hardly wait!

Yep – the anticipation is a big part of the fun.

P.S.
Here’s a number of other board games that have been a hit at Guys Game Night: