Bandera, TX – Part IV Water Park and Board Games
April 2, 2008
Finally, on Wednesday of our trip, we had a warm enough day to utilize the water park. They opened up the water park for a few weeks in November and then opened it again this spring. The park features a children’s splash area with bubbly fountains, slides and a huge bucket that fills and dumps out. It also has a small wave pool, a lily pad / monkey bars cross walk, a volley ball pool and a lazy river. The kids took turns on the slides, the cross walk, while the Moms mostly did the lazy river. They never did run the wave pool while we were in the pool, but did have it running on Saturday when we first arrived at the complex. Our only major complaint was that they didn’t seem to running enough water down the major slide so we all got stuck about half way down.
Now to completely change the subject, we played quite a few board games during the week. One of the first we played was Cruise IQ on Sunday night. We played the kids and I against Grandmother and Grandpop. This was quite fun because all of us love to cruise. There was one question that came up in the trivia game that had us all laughing. The question was “Music from the Norteno region of Mexico most closely resembles: Salsa, Tango, or Polka”. We all had a big laugh because after attending mass at the Polish church, we talked about how the Mexicans adopted the polka music of the Polish, Germans, and Czechs that settled in Southern Texas. We knew this because we, the Klasens, all performed Mexican Norteno Polkas in the Showstopper Dance Competition this year. Too funny. The next game we played was Kismet. This is a fun game to play with kids because it is about 90% luck and 10% strategy. That makes for a fun game with kids because all ages have a nearly equal chance of winning. Savannah was thrilled to be the youngest player and the winner.
I wish I could say that my other favorite game to play was as kid friendly as Kismet. The game I really loved playing was Balderdash. In this game, you can excel if you are really good at “BS”. To play the “dasher” reads an unusual word from a card out loud. Then the other players write down made up definitions of that word on their note sheet, while the “dasher” writes the true definition. Everyone turns in their sheet to the dasher who mixes them up and reads all the definitions out loud. The players then have to pick the one that they think is the true definition. The Dasher wins points if no one guesses the true definition. The other players get points by either guessing the correct answer or having others guess their bluff. This game is definitely quite a bit of fun if you have enough adults playing to provide a wide assortment of believable bluffs. You can also imagine that some of the definitions had us all cracked up. We probably had the most fun playing when it was Steve, Anne, Brett, Mary Fran, David, and Sean playing together on Sunday night. I was glad to say that I was the best “BS”er in the group and won the game that night. When we played with just the girls one morning, Savannah got a little frustrated because her bluffs weren’t so believable and she wasn’t so good at guessing the correct answer. I have to say that as far as family reunions are concerned, board games are one of the best ways to bring everyone together, laugh and have fun.
Showstopper 2008 Day 1
February 22, 2008
Actually, no Showstopper dances today as it was a travel day for us to get to Phoenix. We have lucked out this year and all of the kids and Suzanne’s dances are on Saturday. In past years, they have had dances on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
I worked today and had Suzanne and the kids take me in early so we could leave directly from work. They picked me up a little past 3:30 and we headed off to Phoenix. We can normally do the drive in a little over 90 minutes, but with rush hour traffic, especially in Phoenix, it took us almost 2 and 1/2 hours.
It was about a little after 6:00 when we got to the hotel and checked in. After taking our stuff to the room, we promptly walked down the road to a little Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a nice family meal. By the time we got back to the room, the girls were pretty tired and didn’t stay up very long. Sean and I watched Numbers before we called it a night.
We will rise early as we have to be at the Showstopper Dance location at 7:30 in the morning. It’s going to a long day as we won’t leave the competition until around 11:00 pm. I had hoped to hook up with a friend in Phoenix for a beer, but he was busy Friday night and I look to be busy until late Saturday, so I don’t think it will work out – maybe next time.
As you can see from my previous post on the Showstopper Dance competition, the kids will be busy. I will see if I can’t get a few updates in along the way as I will have my laptop with me. Of course, I will need to find a wi-fi hot spot. Otherwise, I will update their results later that night.
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