Family Game Night

Scott has recently gotten really into board games, which has meant we have been much more active having family game nights. That's become a really fun thing. Our first one was when my mom was visiting. Then we had my sister and the kids over, then Tiffany and our friend Six, and then again this weekend my sister and the kids. I decided to do a post about some of the games we are currently playing.

Gloom is a story telling card game where each player takes control of a family and the goal is to to make your family as miserable as possible before killing off each member, while trying to make the other people's family's happier. This game requires some imagination and story telling ability in order to really have fun with it. We also picked up one of the expansion packs for it that allowed us to add another player and added a new component to the game that makes it a bit more interesting.We have only played Gloom a few times because it is a game that you kind of have to be in the right mood for.

King of Tokyo is probably one of the family's favorites. It's a very simple game, but lots of fun. Basically each person is a monster of some kind and you are trying to survive (you have 10 health points) while trying to get to 20 points. You roll a set of dice which can result in punches (which deal damage on the monster in Tokyo or if you're in Tokyo you deal damage to everyone outside), energy (which you can use to buy cards that give you special abilities), hearts (which heal health), and 1, 2 or 3 (which if you get 3 of one number you get that many points). It's a pretty fun game. We also bought the expansions for it.

 The Power Up Expansion adds the Panda, so an extra person can play. It also has evolution cards for each character, which you can get by rolling 3 hearts. Some of the cards are pretty good.

The Halloween expansion adds two new characters, who also have evolution cards. It also introduces costume cards, which are bought in the same way as the cards in the original game are. However, these cards are really pretty powerful. For instance one of them is a Zombie costume, which allows you to keep playing even after you have lost all your health points. Costume cards can also be stolen by other players.

Munchkin is a card based game, which is a makes fun of the standard Dungeon and Dragons world. Basically there are 10 levels and your goal is to beat monsters and get to level 10 first. You start each turn by kicking down a door. If you get a monster you have to try to beat the monster. The other players can help you if you can't do it on your own (for a fee of course) or they can mess with you and help the monster. If you can't beat the monster than you have to roll a dice in an attempt to run away. If you get a 5 or 6 you successfully run away and your turn ends. If not, then you have to take damage, which is written on the card. Sometimes, you kick down a door and don't get a monster card. If that happens and you get a curse, you have to do whatever the curse is (typically it involves you losing some equipment). You can also kick down the door and get just a random card. Whenever you don't get a monster, you can try to beat a monster in your hand and move up a level, or loot the room, which is where you get a card to add to your hand. I'm a pretty big fan of Munchkin, but it can take a little bit of time to get used to the rules.

Castle Dice is a game that I was very much against when Scott first presented it to me. However, the more I play it the more I find myself really liking it. Basically, each player has the board you see in the middle. This board helps you track your resources. You start with 5 cards, either Castle cards or Village cards, which most of them require you to have a certain number of resources (wood, stone, coins, land, and iron) in order to build them. If you build something from a Castle card you get the points on the card (winner is determined by most points at the end of the game). If you build something from a Village card you get a villager, which helps you with resources. Each player rolls a set number of resource dice. If you get any barbarians, you set them aside and they raid your resources at the end of the turn. Then all the resources are pooled together and you take turns picking resources until they are all gone. There are also horses, pigs, cows, and chicken on the dice, which all have their own functions. After all 7 rounds have been played, all the points are calculated for a winner. It's a game that is really more about you focusing on what you are doing rather than on what anyone else is doing, which diminishes some of the competitive feel that you normally have in games. At first I really wasn't a fan of that fact, but like I said, I am starting to enjoy the game more and more. It probably helps that I've won a couple times. LOL!

A New Tradition?

I love coming up with family traditions and I think we may have found a new one for Father's Day. I just have to see if Scott wants it to become a tradition (cuz I have to give him some say since it's supposed to be his day. LOL!). It will also depend on whether or not it actually takes place on Father's Day each year.

This Father's Day, we started off by taking Scott's car in for an oil change. I think maybe we can leave that part out of the yearly tradition. LOL! While we were waiting for his car to get worked on, we decided to grab some breakfast. We weren't really familiar with the area, but I remembered seeing a Scrambler Marie's somewhere around there, so after a quick Google search, we made our way to the restaurant. Neither of us had ever been to a Scrambler Marie's so we weren't really sure what to expect. It was actually really good, so I could see us making it back there again.

Once we were finished with our yummy breakfast, we picked up Scott's car, dropped it back at the house, and then headed to the Columbus Convention Center for Origins Game Fair. Scott has recently gotten really into board games and we have had some pretty fun family game nights as a result, so he wanted to check Origins out.

We were a little nervous about taking Zoey, since sometimes she doesn't do so well in large groups, especially when there is a lot of stuff that is within her reach that she shouldn't be touching. However, she did really well. She held one of our hands the majority of the time and she lasted quite awhile before she started to get overwhelmed. We were really proud of how well she did.

The first thing we did when we got into the expo hall was check out the booth for Steve Jackson Games, who make one to the games we like, Munchkin. Zoey got a free Munchkin pin and I bought her a set of her own Munchkin dice that came with two cards.

After wandering through some more booths, we came across the Reaper Miniatures booth. Another one of Scott's hobbies that he has recently gotten back into is painting miniatures, and sometimes Zoey paints with him. While we were looking at things there, one of the booth attendants let us know that there was a take and paint station set up where we each got a free miniature and then were able to sit down and paint them. This was a perfect activity for Zoey because she had asked Scott to paint with her earlier that morning. This was my first time painting miniatures, and I tried to do a good job. Scott made fun of me for being so serious, but it's hard to paint those little things.

Zoey's Miniature

My Miniature

Scott's Miniature

After checking out some more booths, Zoey started to get a little bit fussy, so we took a seat at one of the tables set up where you could play a game while Scott went to check something out. At first I wouldn't let her touch anything, but I finally gave in and let her play with one of the tokens.

Scott had some more looking around he wanted to do, so Zoey and I headed out to the hallway area and she had a snack and decompressed a little bit. I also took that opportunity to get her to take a picture with the Origins mascot, which is a cute little monster guy.

 We then went back into the expo hall and found Scott, who was buying a new game, which he is trying to get me into, but I am not completely sold yet. We then headed home for the day. I think Scott was disappointed that some of the game makers he was hoping would be there weren't. However, I thought is was a pretty fun experience.

MDBD - Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake on a Brownie Crust

Last weekend was Father's Day, so of course MDBD was an attempt to do something special for Scott. Zoey and I attempted to make this recipe for Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake on a Brownie Crust from Hugs & Cookies

Normally there would be a picture of our ingredients here. However, I apparently deleted it from my phone before I had actually uploaded it to the computer. You'll just have to use your imagination!

INGREDIENTS

Brownie Crust:
6 Tablespoons Butter, melted plus 1 T. butter to grease pan
1-¼ cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Flour
⅓ cups Unsweetened Cocoa
½ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
6 whole Peanut Butter Cups, Cut Into Quarters - See more at: http://hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2014/03/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-cheesecake-brownie-crust.html#sthash.qWq2Ql9z.dpuf

Brownie Crust:
6 Tablespoons Butter, melted plus 1 T. butter to grease pan
1-¼ cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Flour
⅓ cups Unsweetened Cocoa
½ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
6 whole Peanut Butter Cups, Cut Into Quarters - See more at: http://hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2014/03/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-cheesecake-brownie-crust.html#sthash.qWq2Ql9z.dpuf

Brownie Crust:
6 Tablespoons Butter, melted plus 1 T. butter to grease pan
1-¼ cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Flour
⅓ cups Unsweetened Cocoa
½ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
6 whole Peanut Butter Cups, Cut Into Quarters - See more at: http://hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2014/03/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-cheesecake-brownie-crust.html#sthash.qWq2Ql9z.dpuf

Brownie Crust 

6 Tablespoons Butter, melted plus 1 T. butter to grease pan

1-¼ cup Sugar

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

2 Eggs

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Flour

⅓ cups Unsweetened Cocoa

½ teaspoons Baking Powder

½ teaspoons Salt

1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

1 cup Peanut Butter Chips

6 whole peanut butter cups, cut into quarters

Cheesecake Batter

2 pounds Cream Cheese, Soft

5 eggs

1 ½ cups Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed

1 cup creamy Peanut Butter

½ cups Heavy Cream

1 Tablespoon Vanilla

Topping

(I didn't make the drizzle and instead just put the pb cups on top)

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

7 peanut butter cups, cut in half 

INSTRUCTIONS

Brownie Crust 

Preheat oven to 350°F

Butter a 9-inch springform pan

Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl

Add eggs

Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt

Spread in prepared pan

  Bake about 25 minutes

Remove from oven and sprinkle on choc chips, peanut butter chips and the peanut butter cups

  Lower oven to 325!!!!! 

Cheesecake Batter

Beat cream cheese in bowl of mixer until smooth

Add eggs, one at a time

Add sugar, peanut butter and cream until smooth

Add vanilla

Pour filling into pan

Make sure you lowered oven to 325 at this point

Wrap foil around springform sides and set in large roasting pan

Add hot water to roasting pan so it comes up 1 inch the sides of the pan

 Place entire roasting pan in the oven

Bake at 325 for 90 minutes

Let cool 1 hour

Run knife around edge and chill at least 4 hours

Out of the oven and took the knife around the edge

Finished product

I didn't really realize what all went into making a cheesecake in terms of the water bath and whatnot. It was way more work than I thought it was going to be. My crust ended up being very thick, as you can see from the above picture. This resulted in not all of the cheesecake batter fitting into the pan and I threw quite a bit away. Ninety minutes wasn't quite enough time to completely cook the cheesecake; however, I really wasn't able to tell this until after it had cooled, so when we cut into it there were some places that weren't as set up as the rest of it. However, it was still really good. But it was really rich, so we weren't able to eat very much of it.

6 Tablespoons Butter, melted plus 1 T. butter to grease pan
1-¼ cup Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Flour
⅓ cups Unsweetened Cocoa
½ teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 cup Peanut Butter Chips
6 whole Peanut Butter Cups, Cut Into Quarters - See more at: http://hugsandcookiesxoxo.com/2014/03/reeses-peanut-butter-cup-cheesecake-brownie-crust.html#sthash.qWq2Ql9z.dpuf