12.26.2011: Scrabble Night

While I was gone to San Diego visiting old friends, Alisa went to visit her best friend Christina. Mom went to Gramma & Papa's house....and the boys & kids spent the day working on house projects.  Vince installed the new ceiling fan.  Brent installed the tv speakers all over the house...and programmed their new touch screen remote.  They spent the whole day making home depot trips, re-wiring stuff, and cutting holes in walls and ceilings!  Sounds like sooo much fun & so bummed I missed it.

Later that evening, we played kids Scrabble.  This game was absolutely hilarious!  It brought back so many memories from the years & years of playing Scrabble with Uncle Joe every year at Christmas.  Uncle Joe (Papa's brother) would come out to Riverside for Christmas every year and spend at least a week or 2 there with us all.  Most nights he would come over to our house on Bandini and play Scrabble with us kids....and drink his Pepsi.  He was super competitve and would never just "let" us win. Many times we would have to challenge and break out the good ole' Websters Dictionary to settle the disagreements on "real" words!   Between Scrabble & Connect Four, we had quick a few intense little battles going on.  So much fun for us and such great memories we have of it!  It was great playing kids Scrabble with the kiddos and hopefully starting a new tradition with them to pass on.  I hope they have as many wonderful memories with their aunts & uncles as we did with ours during the holidays!

Back to the game at hand though....it was pretty stiff competition. Drake & I were partners, Mom & Nana were partners, and Andrew & Alisa were partners.  Drake loved trying to spell words upside-down...or  make great words that didn't fit anywhere on the board.  Nana deferred to Mom on the big decisions...and Andrew had fun making up his own words.  He started spelling stuff phonetically...such as ZEW...instead of ZOO.  That was just one of the many words that he would come up with.  Not to mention all the 2 letter words he would find & insist on using his turn up on.  It was hilarious!!  Alisa was a little frustrated, but played along very well and eventually let Andrew play his own words.  So fun!!  We laughed & laughed & laughed!!  Again, one of the best memories of the week...mainly because we have so much history with the game and the kids had such a great time playing!

Nana the chef!!!  Vince and I got her this little outfit since she loves cooking

What u looking at???



 Brent still working & programming the tv

 The ceiling fan Vince installed

Kids scrabble

 Alisa telling Andrew that once again his made-up words cannot be used!

 Mom & Nana were partners & won!

 One of Andrew's words...ZEW (aka zoo)...and yes that is an N, not a Z :)

 Tubbers just being her cutie-patootie self!