Saturday, April 10, 2010

what we do almost every evening

A favorite hobby in the Gong family household is playing board games. Figure 1 demonstrates the extent of this hobby.

Fig. 1


I thought briefly about giving a complete catalog of the games in here, but it sounded exhausting. Instead, I'll list the games visible in Figure 1.

Scrabble
Hail to the Chief
Carcassone
Shogun
Puzzles (2)
Pictionary
Liar's Dice
Settlers of Catan
Chronologic
Brain Storms
Laser Battle
Pork
Ticket to Ride
Acquire
Clue
Sorry!
Apples to Apples
Bohnanza
Pandemic
Backgammon
Face cards
Dominos
Taboo
Balderdash
Scattergories
Monkies in a Barrel
Boggle
Flinch
Rook

A few of my favorite games:

Dominion. We purchased this game in August 2009 and my best guess is that we have played it just under 200 times since then. Now our house rule is that we aren't allowed to play Dominion unless we've played a different game since last playing Dominion.

(Abe and brothers playing Dominion)


Ticket to Ride. When our cousins brought this game to a family reunion several years ago, I had dreams all night long about building trains from Zurich to Palermo.

Rook. I still look back fondly on the summer of 2005, when Abe & I stayed with a family in Virginia for the summer and the father and 11-year-old daughter would routinely stay up until 1am playing.

Scrabble. I can only play a few times a year, because I agonize over trying to triple-score on my Zs and get at least 1 bingo each game.

Pork. Unfortunately, other people can't purchase this game because it is a game Abe made up. It's basically high-intensity reverse Taboo with a political spin. It also involves dressing up as the secret service.

(Photos from an actual Pork game)


8 comments:

Janssen said...

These pictures were the highlight of my day.

Sherry said...

Abe should get a job in Salt Lake so that we can be board game pals. Family reunions just aren't often enough.

And, those pictures were great.

Elizabeth Downie said...

Have you guys ever tried the two player version of Settlers? It's really fun.

Spring said...

Woohoo, sounds like my kind of family! Fun!

Megan said...

Chris wishes that he were in your family.

Margaret said...

So do you play these games when it's just the two of you, or are friends required?

candice said...

...and that is why you guys are so awesome!

Erin Gong said...

Sadly, we mostly play these games with just to 2 of us, but we always welcome friends. In fact, if you just show up at our place at 8:30, you'll probably be able to catch a few rounds of something or other (at this time, probably Dominion).