Goin' Bananas!

As I think all of you know, I love playing games.  It's been this way for as long as I can remember.  I have some pretty funny stories from the many years--I had every Monopoly card memorized by the time I was 10, and when I was actually quizzed on it, I didn't get a thing wrong.  I guess I played A LOT of Monopoly that summer in Florida.  I've since moved onto more strategic games in my adulthood, and I must admit that playing Monopoly now is...well...a bit monotonous (or should that be monopolous?)

I was first introduced to video games when I was staying with my Grandad McMillin in Las Vegas one summer.  His wife, Vannette, loves games more than I do (if that's possible), and she would stay up with me until all hours playing video games.  (As a side note, Grandad and Vannette actually owned a slot machine in their home which I also enjoyed.  It was nice to be able to just open the machine and take out more nickels when I needed them :-))  I remember we played Space Invaders and Pac Man on her Atari machine every night.  Although she doesn't smoke anymore, she did then, and I remember the entire room being filled with cigarette smoke.  It never bothered me probably because I was having so much fun playing games.  To quote Huey Lewis, I guess that's the power of love.

Too, Grandad and Vannette attempted to teach bridge to John and me.  That was an epic fail.  They did successfully teach us Pinochle though--we have played that ever since.

When John and I were still dating, I was living in Ann Arbor and moving from house to house, house-sitting.  At one house, the people owned a Nintendo.  Don't think I'm being ignorant by not putting some suffix on the title.  It was the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  The only game for it was Mario Brothers.  Oh man, it took us a minute to figure out the controllers, but eventually we did, and I know that (again) I stayed up way too late at night playing that game.

My kids tell me that one part of my "awesomeness", as they call it, is that I love to play video games.  From what I hear, there aren't too many moms who like to play as much as me, and who can actually win.  Not that I have much time anymore, but occasionally, I'll sit down and play.

Over the summer, when I was laid up with my ankle, I went out and bought a "new and improved" version of Super Mario brothers.  The best part?  It's made for 4 people, so the kids and I spent TOO many hours playing that.  It was good to get back to the left-to-right kind of action.  I definitely don't like the 3-D, virtual games at all--I get too confused (yes, that sounds old).

A couple of weeks ago, I spotted "Donkey Kong Country Returns" at Target.  Could it be?  My old favorite and stand-by that I used to play when my babies were napping?  It was for the Wii.  I brought it home and nobody seemed very interested, so I shelved it, planning on giving it to myself for Christmas.

After Christmas, when the kids were gone to work all day, I pulled it out.

What a blast it has been!

In fact, we have some serious issues at night when the kids have all done their jobs.  Guess what everyone wants to play?  It didn't help that Mark was staying up until all hours watching "Frasier" when he should have been sleeping so I took the TV out of his room.  One TV less, and only one video game.  Needless to say there were some tears, and little bit of yelling, last night :-)

I don't like it when my kids are in school.  I miss them terribly.  However, I had no problem today, playing Donkey Kong all by my lonesome, with no sharing.

Did I mention that I like to play games?