Carcassonne [Board Game Review]

Hi-ho, it's your old friend Daniel again, back with another board game review for those who want to look beyond the realm of rolling dice or spinning spinners. Today, I take a look at the game that introduced all of us to the world of meeples. This game with a strange-looking title was one of the first ones I bought.

Carcassonne, at its core, is a relatively simple. The goal of the game is to to score the most points through laying tiles on the table and placing your meeples on the tiles. From the picture on the right (from geekdo.com), the tiles have towns, roads, abbeys, and pastures. Carcassonne is kind of like a puzzle in that when you place a tile, you must match up the borders with each other (i.e. town-town, road-road, pasture-pasture). Once you place a tile, you can choose to place a meeple on the tile you just played - on the town, on a road, on an abbey, or laying down in the pasture. I won't go through all of the rules here, but when you complete a town, road, or abbey, you score a certain number of points. Here is an excerpt of a review I wrote on another site. It sums up my thoughts still. (Note: I wrote this when Nyla was 5 months old.)

What do we enjoy about Carcassonne?
*Game Length - Anytime you can knock out a game in no more than 45 minutes is excellent. Especially in our case. Our little 5-month old girl is not too keen on taking long naps, meaning that any game lasting longer than an hour or hour and a half will have a third player make it to the table - her. This is a great game to play during her naps or at night before we ourselves crash for the night.

*Set-up - Clear off table; place tiles in bag; get scoring track out; pass out the meeples. That's pretty much it. My wife doesn't care about clean up, since I always do that.

*Rules - Other than the farmer scoring system, which was a little confusing at first, the rules for this game are simple and easy to understand/teach. Lay a tile and place a meeple on that tile if no one has claimed that feature. Score and remove the meeple when the feature is finished (except for those farmers).

*Simplicity - While we do own Puerto Rico, Agricola, and other "heavier" games, sometimes we just want a nice game without a lot of strategy. Not to say there is no strategy in Carcassonne, because there clearly is. But at times we just want a game where we can carry on a conversation without getting bogged down with strategy.

*Variability/Replayability - Every game will produce a different tile layout. We enjoy laying the tiles and watching Carcassonne come together. Taking a step back at the end of the game and seeing what we have created is pretty neat.

What do we not like?
There's not a lot we dislike. The random tile draws can be annoying sometimes, but there are variants floating around here that can help mitigate that somewhat. Not to say that the randomness takes away from our experience, but, when you're looking for that one tile to complete a big city, it can be frustrating.

Conclusion
I have Carcassonne rated as a 9. It's a game I will never turn down a play of and will suggest as a good opener/ender when my brother comes over for a game night. It is a game that we will pull out just about every week. It's simple, elegant, and fun. And selfishly, I hope that in years to come my daughter will want to enjoy Carcassonne with us as well. Just not for the next couple years though. I'd prefer not to make a trip to the hosptial to retrieve any ingested meeples!

So there you go. I have also added a few expansions to the game that we throw in from time to time. All of them change the game in a certain and don't add too much length to it. Carcassonne is a fun game that doesn't take long to play and is easy to pick up. Highly recommended!

-D

Mother's Day Gift (Craft)

As we all know, hopefully that is, Sunday is Mother's Day. Since our mother's don't need anything but love anything from the girls, I decided to make a craft for them. It took me less than 10 minutes to do three of these and the girls cooperated really well.

Gather your supplies:

construction paper or a heavier weight paper

paint (I used acrylic b/c I had it and it washes easily)

paint brushes (foam and a small brush)

paper plate(s)

sharpie marker

document frame from the Dollar Tree (holds an 8.5 x 11 paper)

wet washcloth and a nearby sink for quick and easy cleanup

Ready, set, go:

Squirt some paint on a paper plate. (I used purple for Naomi and pink for Nyla, the flowers that is)

Using paint brush, paint your child's hand and press firmly onto paper. Repeat process if doing more than one picture. We did one hand at a time and one foot at a time.  I kept Naomi in her booster seat while I worked with Nyla.

After completing the hand and foot prints, run to the sink and wash hands and feet quickly. I kept a wet washcloth to wipe off the feet until we could get to the kitchen sink. 

Using a smaller paint brush I painted on the stem of the flower, creating the handprint flower and footprint leaves look. 

Let dry overnight. (Acrylic paint dries quickly but I didn't want it sticking to the inside of the glass is it wasn't completely dry).

Write a note on the paper in a sharpie pen, if desired. Make sure and date it!

Once dry, frame it!

Enjoy seeing the smiles on the mother's or grandmother's face. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Shhh... don't tell I did these because our mom's haven't gotten them yet. ;)

One of the finished products: Naomi's hand and foot is on the left and Nyla's is on the right.
It's hard to tell who is who, they're about the same size!
I did make one for myself. :)

Gratituesday: To the Zoo

I love having the Memphis Zoo 20 minutes from our home. We're able to pop over there for a couple hours each week, when it's nice, and spend some time seeing and talking about the animals. It's homeschool at it's best! We can see, hear, touch and discuss what we see. 

I love that my parents have continued to buy us a membership each Christmas. This "gift of experience" continues to give and give with each visit. I love seeing the girls grow and learn more about the animals each time. They love it there as much as I do. 

Enjoy some pictures from our visit today!

Nyla pet a sheep. Our sweet Nyla isn't one to try new things, though we encourage her often to do so.
She really surprised me today when she said she wanted to and then actually did.

Naomi's favorite animal right now is the Panda or "pana" as she calls it. 

Nyla still loves the zebra's. 

One of Nyla's favorites is Maliki the giraffe. Maliki was born in January and we're seeing her grow up. It's awesome.
Maliki is Nyla's "friend" according to Nyla. She's so sweet.

I just had to have a picture of her with her face in the hole. Naomi wanted to but she's a little too short. :)

Nyla first stood in front then I showed her how to stick her face in the hole so she could be a giraffe.

"Flaminingoes" as the girls call them.

I Don't Know

I don't know what to blog about these days. Do you have any suggestions? What do you want to see from me? I keep thinking I want to host a theme each month. For example, a month of all recipes, a month of parenting q and a (not that I'm an expert but I like hearing what others are doing), what I'm reading, organizing, marriage, book reviews, intentional living, etc. Thoughts?
I wouldn't post everyday but 2-4 times a week. I'd like some feedback. Please, do tell!!!

Cookies and Ice Cream

We definitely love our dessert around here! Mommy makes some good ones!

Saying "Hello" to our New Yard

We're all settled into our new home and back into our usual routine. Thankfully, all the work inside the house got done before we moved in so I can concentrate on the yard. It needs a lot of love but I see potential and I've been working like a dog in it. It needs a lot of maintenance work but I'm excited to see what I can do with it!

And we need a lot out of our yard. Not only do we need a place for the girls to run wild but we need an adult retreat and a garden space. The girls part is done. They can wander anywhere in the yard and be fine (thank goodness for a fence) and the adult retreat part is basically there as well. I do feel relaxed when Daniel and I can go out there and sit in our chairs and just sit and talk. I see a lot I can do each time we sit but I know I can do it later. I have an ongoing list of tasks I can do in the yard. I don't feel like I'll get it all done this year or even the next, but it's tasks I'd like to see done over the next few years.

This week I've worked hard in our yard. Monday, I bought a lemon tree, potting soil and flowers for our patio pots and to put a few in our mailbox bed. I then came home and planted 2 flats of flowers, tilled up a small area for some raspberries, scouted out an area for some fruit trees, pulled up ivy and a lot of other weeks and planned the yard for a bigger bed. Tuesday, I bought 2 ever red loropetulam and 20 bags of mulch. I came home and bricked in my new large bed, extended a bed up by the house, raked and cleaned up the yard. Today I sprayed round up on poison ivy (yuck) and all the ivy I can't get up, as well as other vine stuff that just doesn't go where it is. I obviously have big plans for our yard. I may be a little too ambitious but hey, I see potential! I think I'm getting a little addicted too. :)

I'm also investing in fruit trees. My sweet grandma sent me a generous check for my birthday and I decided I wanted some fruit trees that we can enjoy for years to come. I bought 1 pear tree, the variety is Moonglow (my sister bought me one for my birthday and I found out it needed a companion for pollination; she bought me a Bartlett Pear). I also bought a sour cherry tree, the variety is Montmorency (note: sour cherry trees don't need a second for pollination, if you want sweet cherry trees, buy two for pollination). And lastly, I bought 2 peach trees (our favorite). The two varieties I bought are Redhaven Dwarf and Gala Standard. I bought all my trees from Stark Brothers. Last month, I bought my blueberries and strawberries from them and they've been very helpful. I follow them on Twitter and whenever I have a question I ask them there and they respond within 24 hours (at the latest) with the answer. That makes this newbie gardener more comfortable!

At last, here are a few pictures of our yard. It's only pieces of the yard. It's pretty big and I'm trying to add more gardening plants to it so there's less grass to cut. That is NOT my favorite thing, at all!

The first iris's are blooming!

I created a big bed. It's a work in process and probably will be for a long time. I like it!
Behind the bricks will be the bed. There's already a few things there that are planted or waiting to be planted.

I invested in 4 blueberry plants this year. I hope we'll be enjoying blueberries from them next year! I bought 2 O'Neil and 2 Misty. You need two different varieties for pollination. I ordered them from starkbros.com. They have a 1 year money back guarantee. 

Our strawberry patch. I planted 25 bare-root strawberry plants. I hope they'll spread like crazy and we'll enjoy them next year as well. The variety I chose was Ozark Beauty.  

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My raspberry bed. I made a gardening friend on Twitter and she sent me 5 raspberry canes. She told me I'll probably have 25 canes in 5 years. I'm excited. She thinks the variety is Heritage.

Our Meyer Lemon tree. I'm going to keep it in a pot and on the patio through the summer and fall. I'll move it into our house before the first frost. The man I bought it from said it should give us lemons this summer. It looks like it might!
I'll be interested to see how this works for us.
It's definitely an experiment. I thought a $21 experiment wouldn't be too bad. :)

A bigger picture of the lemon tree.

A peony! I'm anxious to see what color the blooms will be. I'll be moving this into the big bed by the fence in the Fall. For now, I'll enjoy it in this spot. 

As you can see I have a lot going on in the yard. My mom is going to help me with a few things in the yard for my birthday present from her. We're going to Digger O'Dell next weekend to pick out a few things for the new big bed and talk about what can be done in it.

What's going on in your yard this year?

Saying Goodbye to our "Old" House

Almost one month ago we left our "old" home and moved to our "new" home. It was a bittersweet couple of days. I didn't cry the day we moved, I was too busy and I think that was a good thing. The following Thursday the four of us went to clean our outside closet and after we were done and looking around inside one last time I lost it. It was harder leaving than I thought it would be. I love our new home and we've all adjusted well and we have so much more room but I still think about our little house. It's the first home Daniel and I bought together, we brought both girls home from the hospital to that house, learned to be parents a first and second time and filled that home with love. I know I'll think of that house often and I'm thankful for the wonderful memories I have of it.

Below are some pictures I took during our last few days at our "old" house. Sweet memories!

The girls have the best time playing together. They enjoy making these chairs into a train. 

Naomi is trying her hand at play-doh for the first. It went well for about 5 minutes then she put it in her mouth. And got it in her teeth. And all over her hands. We'll try again another time. :)

Naomi loves pushing Nyla on her tricycle. She's pretty good at pushing by herself too. Sweetie pies!