• Sunday, April 06, 2008

    { Puerto Rico Party }

    Thought I'd better blog this before Link beat me to it. He is winning the blog war at the moment....

    Last night we went to Suzy and Lincoln's and had dinner with our dear friends Mandy and Dave who recently moved to Melbourne. Mandy and Dave are in our inner camping friends circle and since the weather is getting cooler we haven't seen as much of them as we would like. Anyway, we went to Waratah Bay with Mandy and Dave about 6 weeks a go, and while we were there they taught us a game called Puerto Rico , which is ranked as number one game on www.GameBoardGeek.com. After the initial confusion of trying to learn quite a complicated game, we finally 'got it'. And ended up having 3 games in one day, which is quite a feat since the game we had last night lasted over 3 hours.... Any way, Brian emerged victorious and a good night was had by all, it's not an easy game to describe, but it is vaguely like Monopoly in trying to acquire wealth and property, but instead it is setting up a new colony.... OK that doesn't really describe it well at all, but if you like games, this could be worth a try. Mandy and Dave have left the game so we can have a play since, despite it's ranking, it is not easy to get locally. To prove our level of addiction Suzy and Link our coming over shortly for a follow up game.... stay tuned....

    I have recently purchased Foto Fusion and have created a few basic layouts with it, the first one below is of a night late last year at Suzy and Lincoln's for a BBQ, so here are all the people that were there Puerto Rico-ing it up last night... Click on Pictures for a larger view.
    Below is a layout of our weekend at Waratah Bay with Mandy and Dave. Dave was teaching the girls how to surf. I really enjoyed doing this layou as the photo's made me smile and remember a great weekend, also the kids will remember this forever, they had a ball learning to surf with two of their best friends, Mallory and Odette. They really didn't want to get out of the water, but all good things must come to an end. I think this is something they will try again next summer.



    Below is another quick one on our Easter trip to Bright, we stayed both at the caravan park and also at Lincoln's Mum and Dad's house at Harrietville. Brian (Link's Dad) was a wonderful host and we loved being there. The kids had a ball and made some new friends, Claudia and Mitchell who we have arranged to camp with next year.

    Just like the divine Miss A, I too did the Smudge course at DAA along with a few other MAC girls, this Smudge I did of Quinn, before I really knew what to do. Scott Deardorf was an excellent tutor, with excellent video and written tutorials and the class was very chatty and full of inspiring people.

    Here is the Eagle which was what we all did in the class.


    Since Link has told you what he is reading I thought I should. I have had a bit of a reading hiatus lately, due to late nights and also the fact that I have been enjoying audible books on my iPod, but I recently caught up on all the First Tuesday Book Club vodcasts that I had missed on the ABC and it inspired me to get back into one of my loves, books. I went and bought "The Broken Shore" by Peter Temple, which had had a good review on the show and while I was at the book store I picked a book off the shelf called "The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak, I bought this primarily because it was written by an Australia about the 1st world war set in Germany. Well, what a fabulous read... I like to read books slowly and savour them, but this I read in 3 days, reading the last 1/3rd of the book in one sitting, finishing at 4.30am. I can highly recommend this book, it was written with an unusual style, and was extremely engaging, I can't recommend it enough. Unfortunatley I trued to start The Broken Shore straight after it but the writing style was so different I had to stop, will start it in the next few days.



    Lastly, we ended up having a big sleep over here on Friday night, trying to take advantage of having Mallory and Odette visiting from Melbourne. So with six little girls staying in our rumpus room there was lots of, Wii-ing, SingStar-ing and DVD-ing happening, they were of course Angels and looked after themselves pretty much. Also in these pictures is Jesamine (Quinn and Bronte's cousin) and Chantal, who is also belongs to one of our camping families. They had such a great time and here are some pics to prove it....

    OK off to Puerto Rico it up now! Have a great day :-)

    Updated to add: 5 games... (they ended up staying for pizza...bad I know....

    Score
    Lee won 2
    Suzy won 2
    Brian won 1
    Lincoln NONE (although he thinks he has a better average because he kept coming 2nd...)

    3 Comments:

    Blogger Link said...

    Bugger, I can't even beat you to tonight's update.

    That'll teach me for databasing another shelf of books before logging on to blog (log .. blog ... I damn near came over all poetic then).

    Let me second the opinion re: Puerto Rico. It really is a cool game. I recall an Aussie game called Squatter back in the 80s. I wonder if it was of the same ilk. I never played it myself, but maybe I'll Google it and see what I can discover.

    BTW - there's an inner camping friends circle? I might need some clarification on where exactly certain individuals are placed within what I now know to be some manner of hierarchical class-based camping society (and you know where I stand on society!!!).

    I may not win much at board games, but I'm kickin' serious butt in the blogging stakes! Well ... for quantity if not quality.

    April 06, 2008 10:30 pm  
    Blogger Chris said...

    Hello Lee and it's good to know you still in the land of the living. wow you have been busy girl and sounds like you have been having heaps of fun too. The game Puerto Rico sounds very interesting and I have to admit I have never even heard of it.....lol anyway great to have such a great circle of friends to do this with. LO's look fab using Foto Fusion and wow on the Smudge course the photos are simply divine. Something I would certainly love to know more about. Awesome photos as well but ten you take brilliant photos anyway Lee and I always love viewing the latest series. Take care and thanks for leaving such wonderful comments on my blog too that certainly made my day hearing from you. xoxo

    April 07, 2008 12:58 pm  
    Blogger Sherryll said...

    hey there, love love love your FF layouts, the girls are gorgeous here at their sleepover.
    never heard of the game, will check it out ! sounds awesome.
    glad to see another blog after soooooo long :)
    good work

    April 08, 2008 12:48 pm  

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