January 4 Games

Thursday:  While I was searching around my little house this afternoon looking for something interesting to do with Kaity, I remembered a game we play now and then (but haven't in a very long time)--KERPLUNK. I set the game out on my table and left to go pick up Kaity.

Once here, Kaity saw the game and approached it enthusiastically. YES! We set it up and had a lot of fun playing.

The set-up is the hardest part, which we remembered immediately after getting it out of the box. Getting the "stix" to go through both holes on each side of the cylinder is a challenge. We accomplished it, though, and played a game. I lost, but Kaity cheated (she DID!!). It didn't matter, because actually the game is poorly designed and can be frustrating because marbles fall when no one even removes a stick.

Kaity was unaware, though, that this box of KerPlunk actually contains another game. It doesn't say so on the box--but these colorful "sticks" can be used to play a very old game called "Pick-up-Stix"! So I demonstrated how the game is played and Kaity jumped right on it!

I told her that Emma and I played this quite a few times and had fun with it too. I think Kaity and I played SIX games and cracked ourselves up flipping these colorful and almost weightless sticks through the air and off other sticks so as to gather them to ourselves. We tied once at 14/14 and I think I actually won ONE game--but the others belonged to Kaity. She was really quite good at not moving any other sticks. However, I should also note that she was quite liberal with herself if there was only a slight movement (on her turn, NOT mine!) and then would smile and take the stick. 

We drove over to Altitude and arrived by about 6:30. No band was issued to Kaity and we were told we could stay until closing (8:00). Very nice of them. As always, we hoped to see Ayden there; but he did not come. Kaity did find others to hang around with and ended up having a lot of fun. There were SO MANY kids there! AND ... tons of them were very acrobatic and quite accomplished. I am always amazed to see young children doing back flips and cartwheels ... and how HIGH they jump--so fearless. It's very entertaining actually.

The only negative of our entire time together was that I left my phone sitting on the platform where Kaity and I were hanging out and never realized this happened until LONG after Altitude was closed for the night. In fact, I didn't realize my phone was "missing" until I came home at 10:15 from my sister's place and went to charge it up overnight--only to find NO PHONE in my purse or car or ... anywhere. I correctly concluded that I left it at Altitude and found it exactly where I had left it when I drove over there at 10AM the next morning. Happy endings are good things.