We have a shelf in our dining room.  It runs along the top of the wall.  One of those shelves that are just for decoration, the ones that are too high for any short girl like me to reach without bringing in the rickety old ladder from outside, or standing on the table.  That is the shelf where we keep a lot of our games.   The fact that it looks pretty cool (it does! ), isn't the reason they are there.  We just ran out of room for all our games and we didn't want to hide them away and forget about them.  This way, most of our games are up, but we see them every time we go into the kitchen or dining room.  Getting a snack, doing dishes, making dinner, we are reminded of ways we can connect with our kids.  

  We have some of your typical games, Wahoo, of course, chutes and ladders, checkers, ones like those.  Some of the more popular modern ones are on the shelf, Catan,  Carcassonne,  Munchkin.  Then we have the crazy ones nobody has heard of unless you are a gaming geek. :)  Agricola, Lanterns,  Sea Fall, SmallWorld.

   Some of these games are easy, quick, taking less then twenty minutes to play.  Others, you will need all day, I mean ALL DAY, plenty of snacks, sodas, a few quick to prepare meals and all your D&D stamina.    Some of these games are perfect for just a couple of players, others are a lot more fun with a crowd.

This is why we have games and why we play them with our family and friends.  We talk about life, politics, work, nothing and everything in between.  We see our kids as they develop strategy and learn to think through different problems each game presents and how they learn to respect and listen to other players and their opinions .  We get to see how they interact with each other and others and us at a more intimate level.  A bond is forged over the long hours of reading through rules and fighting monsters and zombies in dungeons.  Each game brings us time to spend with our family, our friends.  Each game holds more memories then a box can contain. 

When you walk past a game, but have to stop because ,"oh Wow!  I haven't seen this game since I was a kid!  We used to play this ALL the time!"   Those are the games on our dining room shelf.