15 minute posts,  Family Matters

Game Night with Grandma

April 11, 2011 /

Let's Play!

A while back I bought a Scrabble board game at an estate sale for a buck. I’d never played Scrabble in my life but all my friends play it with their handy dandy iPhones so I figured if it’s that much fun, I might as well try it. Inconveniently, I don’t have an iPhone but I do have a grandma who is the word-master and my mom said my grandma would love to teach me, so I swooped it up.

Plus, the box had a really cool font on it and you know how I am about well-designed packaging. I figured if the game was a bust, I could always make cool earrings out of the pieces or something.

ready, set, spell!

We picked a night and set a date. I brought dinner (a 10×15 baking dish of cut-up root vegetables and a tossed salad—yum!*) and a movie for Bug. We ate our delicious dinner and then sat down to play. It was a blast!

what's a nard

I picked it up pretty quick but I can’t say I’m very good. What is a nard anyway?

Bug spying.

Good thing they let me play with a dictionary! I thought of so many words that weren’t really words. I think we should invent an alternative game that allows proper nouns and Spanish last names. Reyes is totally a word!

us Grandma gets her game on.

Anyway it was super fun and a great way to spend time with my Grandma**. We decided it was so much fun we’re going to do it again next week.

Bug takes a turn

And maybe the week after that!

and the last word was FIN

I lost, of course, but I am not a sore loser. I’m just warming up! Same time next week, Grandma! Prepare to eat your socks.

Who am I kidding? I’ll never beat my Grandma. She is a writer and she was a medical transcriptionist by trade after all. Not to mention I can’t spell worth beans. But it will be really fun to keep trying.


*Compliments to my friend Deb whom I stole this menu from.
**and Auntie too!

23 Comments

  • bethany actually

    April 11, 2011 at 9:54 pm

    Are you kidding me!?? You’d never played Scrabble before? How is that possible, especially considering all the times you’ve hung out with me? I guess when you and I get together we’re not usually playing board games. :-) I’m glad you had fun! I would love to play Scrabble with your grandma sometime. I bet she is super fun and challenging to play against!

  • bethany actually

    April 11, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    Also, without clicking the link, I’m pretty sure nard is something smelly that has to do with perfume. Like, it’s an oil or a fixative or some ingredient in perfumes, particularly in olden times. Now I have to go see if I’m right. :-)

  • Sarah

    April 12, 2011 at 2:26 am

    I’m glad you had such a nice evening, but you see this is why I don’t play Word With Friends – my vocabulary is rubbish! I played a few test games against myself and decided I’d probably just get beaten – a lot!

  • Elda

    April 12, 2011 at 4:30 am

    We’ve been playing scrabble for YEARS now. When the kids were too young to know how to read/write we played in “Teams” and let them place the tiles on the board. Now they are old enough and have won several awards for spelling and they go head to head with us. Of course they can’t beat ME, but boy do they come close! LOL My husband is still very much a sore loser. LMAO.

  • Liane

    April 12, 2011 at 6:08 am

    You should check out Bananagrams! (no, this is not an ad:) We recently discovered it and it’s a sort of informal version of Scrabble…fun for the whole fam!

  • Monica

    April 12, 2011 at 6:17 am

    Big scrabbles lovers here! It’s been great to watch my kids learn to enjoy it too. We play the board version, but I recently got an iPhone, and now I play with my friend in San Diego all the time. (I’m in the Bay Area.)

    Scrabble = Love

  • Karen

    April 12, 2011 at 6:41 am

    Is there a recipe for the cut-up root vegetables? This sounds like something that would work really well with my limited finances!

    SAJ says: There might be but I didn’t have one. I’d been watching my friend Deb make them for me when I come over on the weekends. From what I can tell she just chops them up, adds garlic, onions and olive oil and bakes them, maybe some salt. She might also add vegetable broth but I’m not sure. We didn’t and the vegetables caramelized nicely. They were soooooo yummy!

  • Auntie Keren

    April 12, 2011 at 6:51 am

    Thanks for coming. Now we need to challenge Auntie Kathy; I loved the expression on Bug’s face when you told her she has yet ANOTHER Auntie to meet…”Sigh…does it ever end?”
    I ended the game with a J & Q left, and still beat Gramma by 3 points!

  • bethany

    April 12, 2011 at 8:42 am

    love scrabble, and some of my best grambie memories are of playing it with her … she’s not up to it any more at 94, and i really miss it. Douglas is starting to get into it though! So glad you’re getting Grandma time over it, bet they’ll be great Bug memories down the lane too! Enjoy :).

  • Christine

    April 12, 2011 at 9:10 am

    We like Scrabble too, but B takes forever to take his turn, and then always wins by miles, Mister Triple Word Score. Recently we discovered Bananagrams, which is much quicker and gives me a fighting chance to win too. No more nodding off while waiting for my turn. (Though you can always set a timer and play speed Scrabble, which is fun if someone’s a slowpoke.)

    I love doing roasted root veg too. With lots of garlic cloves.

  • Jaynette

    April 12, 2011 at 9:52 am

    Scrabble Jr is great for the school age kids. Bug should be ready for that soon. The words are printed on one side (regular board on the other) and you match the letters to spell the words. Much more success for the younger crowd, but still challenging.

  • amy

    April 12, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    I grew up playing scrabble with my Mom, she was a fanatic! Now I am completely hooked on Lexulous and wordscraper on Facebook (same thing as Scrabble) and thankfully have a few similarly
    addicted friends!

    What a wonderful family time for you, you are so fortunate to have family nearby :)

  • Madge

    April 12, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    How fun! Yeah, I’m surprised that none of us have played Scrabble together, but when I really think about the concept, not so much. Sprite would have surely stolen a good portion of the tiles.

    I too, know what a nard is. I giggle whenever anyone mentions the city of OXNARD.

  • gingermog

    April 13, 2011 at 4:37 am

    Hello, in my experience grandmas are always excellent at playing Scrabble. Is it that their generation are better at spelling or is it their extra years of game play which enable them to bag the tripple, dipple word scores ?

    I’m really surprised that you haven’t played Scrabble before. At home it was a Winter staple as no one could be be bothered to play Monopoly with me. It goes on too long were the groans from my older sibs, so I had to wait until my nephews were born and old enough to play it. Scrabble however, I have been playing since slightly younger than Bug which put me at a disadvantage because the only words I knew how to spell were short and I was playing against grown ups and almost grown ups, hence I hardy ever won, but it never put me off. It was always such fun to see the elder kids arguing over made up words and having to bring out the Oxford dictionary to quell disputes.

    On a design note the older box set is a classic the modern versions (at least in the UK) have gone all sooped up and unattractive in a bid to attract a younger audience. Boo I say, keep games classic.

  • OMSH

    April 13, 2011 at 11:57 am

    We’ll totally play when you visit again in October. We bought the game and it sits on a sort of lazy-susan contraption, which makes it quite convenient.

    LOVE Scrabble!

  • Kuky

    April 14, 2011 at 11:11 pm

    I don’t have an iphone but the game works on my android phone. I do play with my friends and Alan. I’ve gotten so used to it I can’t imagine playing on a real board anymore. And you know now I’m thinking about it I think we might actually have it in our closet. Now I’m curious. Must check tomorrow.