http://www.upsoclose.com/20090802/games-that-we-play 

When I was a child, I was incredibly good at games. Memory was my favorite as a young girl, and no one could beat me at it but my Great Aunt Beverly. Every time she would come to visit and play Memory with me, I would hope it would be the time I would win. I never got tired of trying.

When my mom and step dad got married and moved to Newark, Ohio, I remember playing some games with my mother.

But mostly I remember always winning. My mother was kind and would play with me if I insisted, but she practically never won, and she didn't think it was very fun.

I stopped playing games for a while. They seemed like a hassle. IF I won, I felt worried that the person I was playing with wouldn't want to play with me anymore. But I didn't want to play if I wasn't going to try.

When I was with my exhusband Scott, we used to play cut throat Scrabble, and I think I won once. It felt futile after a while to try anymore.

I was more for group games instead of one on one games. We used to have gaming parties. We had some really, really fun games and fun memories from playing games with friends.

I remember playing Taboo with Scott and my friend Amie. The object of the game is to get the other players to guess a word without saying a set of related words that would really give the answer away. Amie pulled the card for Tzar or Russia or something like that. She thought for a minute before saying, "Vodka." And I guessed the answer right away.

One year, we bought for Amie and Duffy, the game, Wise and Otherwise. I highly recommend it.

When playing a game with Amie and her husband Duffy that you have to use different shapes to make a picture. I forget the name of the game- it was one we didn't play much. Amie pulled the card listing robot as the object to make. Amie put the card for a square in the middle and immediately her Duffy yelled out, "Robot!"

The best memory, though, was when we played this Loaded Questions game. There was a question about having any pet you could choose, what would it be? All of the players wrote down their answers and the player who read the question aloud had to guess who said what as the answers were read back. I don't remember everyone's answer, I just remember Duffy's answer. If he could have any pet in the world, he would have a helper monkey.

Somehow through the years and Loaded Questions stopped being fun. We (Scott and our group of friends) knew each other too well, perhaps.

These things have tickled me every time I remember them.

I've been thinking about games today because the twins have been pressing to do something together, like swim, and I've been trying to think of alternatives.

We have a few games here in Sweden, but not very many. I hope to get some more in the coming years.