The boys got an electronic Monopoly game for Christmas, so we decided to play it last night. We had a blast, so here are the highlights. We had the requisite Crying Christopher (tm) with some alternating hysterical laughing and fingerpointing. Anton played the part of Mr. Fly only getting a total of 4 properties because of his uncanny ability to land on Chance or Community Chest 90% of the time. This neat-o trick also ensured that he never landed on Mommy's house laden yellow properties.
Jean-Luc was the banker. He started out strong with a good spread of properties, but missed the trading opportunities by asking for too high trading prices. When the time came for him to really need to unload some properties to pay rent cash, no one wanted them. Hmmm, sounds a little too close to reality!
Mom took an early lead by naturally landing on all three yellow properties, starting building early, and collected some pumped up rents. I also picked up the red monopoly by trading one of the most expensive dark blue properties with Anton so he could make some money since he only had 3 properties at the time. I was glad to get that second monopoly as I was the only one who landed on Anton's dark blue most expensive properties once he started building houses. He had a ton of cash because he wasn't able to blow it all on buying properties.
Dad was Chris's partner. They did fairly well too, but weren't able to make a monopoly because of Jean-Luc's artificially high trading prices and knowing that if they traded with me that I would then trade it over to Anton cause I felt a little sorry for his not being able to buy any land. Jean-Luc got two monopolies, both of the cheapest properties. He staked his entire future on hotels for the two cheap ones next to the Go square which I said no one would ever land on. He never had enough cash to build on the light blue ones after that. And... no one ever did land on those two.
So, that's how it started. As the game progressed, I was very proud that the three boys played and didn't really argue or fight. I was the most proud of Jean-Luc because he kept it together once it became apparent that there was no way he was going to win and had to start mortgaging his properties and giving them up to pay rents. Chris was wearing his emotions on his sleeve and was alternating happy and crying depending on whether or not Dad was collecting or paying rents. Anton was just coasting along with a ton of cash and only ended up with the 3 properties. Mom was laid back and just taking it all in as I had houses along the whole back row. Then, I landed on Anton's first dark blue property that nearly wiped out all my cash. I was able to recover and build up a large reserve of cash as all the boys landed on my back row. Then, I landed on Anton's second dark blue property with 3 houses, and it did wipe me out. But, fortunately it was bedtime, and it all ended well. Family game night was a huge success.
Jean-Luc and I took his friend Aaron with us on a trip to Epcot with our church group yesterday. Wow - do my feet hurt today! We went around noon and got back close to midnight. The three of us veered off from the main group early because the boys wanted to spend more time in the World Showcase. This photo is from the Morocco exhibit - I love how it turned out. We visited all the countries, then dashed off to spend two hours in line for the Soarin' ride, then the fireworks, and finally headed home. Click this post title to see all the photos from the day.
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