Family Fun Activities

Today in our Young Women's lesson at church we designed Family Fun bags.  All of the girls decorated their bags and then we filled out pieces of paper that had ideas for fun family activities on them.  There were some great ideas. Now each YW has a bag full of ideas for their family to do when they need a little more "family time."


1. Grey Wolf: A variation of hide-and-seek.  One person hides (and is the grey wolf).  Everyone has to leave the base to go looking for the grey wolf.  When you see the wolf, you shout "GREY WOLF" and run as fast as you can back to the base.  If the wolf catches you before you get to base, you are it.  This is really fun after dark.  
2. Eureka: This is a great one for family walks.  The kids have to run ahead of the adults and hide somewhere on the path. If the parents see a child, they say "I see you John (or whatever the kid's name is). If the parents walk by the kid without being spotted, the call "Eureka" and they get a point.  The kid with the most points at the end of the walk wins.  (This was invented by my in-laws as a great way to walk without kids listening to every word spoken). 
3. Family Cook-off: Each family member can compete in cupcake decorating, in cake making, in chili recipes, etc.  
4. Sardines: Another hide-and-seek variant.  The person who is "it" hides.  If you find "it," you hide with them until the last person finds the group and they become "it."
5. Walk to get ice cream: Self-explanatory, but pick a location to walk to that has a pot of gold at the end. Walking for ice cream, pizza, roller skating, etc. 
6. Snorkeling: Obviously, this is not for every location, but living in Puerto Rico, we forget that we have  beautiful waters to explore.
7. Scum (President) Card Game: This is a fun card game that can be played with a bunch of people.  As I'm not the best at describing card games, here's a link to describe it.  Thank you Bruce Gourley. Scum or President Card Game Rules
8. Skip-Bo: Another card game.  Here are the instructions courtesy of Mattel. Rules for Skip-Bo
9. Monster: This is a great outdoor game to play on a family sized jungle gym.  One person is the "monster." They cannot touch any part of the jungle gym with their feet, but may run around the ground as much as they want.  The victims of the monster are not allowed to touch the ground, but must stay touching the play equipment. Especially with larger groups of people, this leads to much hysterical laughter 
10. Movie Night: Pick a theme and break out your best G or PG movie for everyone to enjoy. Popcorn enhances this activity.
11. Tea Party: Break out the cucumber sandwiches, scones and clotted cream, mini muffins, cheese slices and peppermint tea for a fun picnic cum tea-party.
12. Flash-light tag: Another after-dark game. Only the person who is "it" has a flash-light.  Usually we get in a field or an open area to minimize injuries and then it is just like regular tag, except if the light hits you, you are "it."
13. Spud: You need a tennis ball for this game. You assign everyone a number and then you have someone who is "it." They have to throw the ball straight up in the air and call someone's number. If they call your number, you have to run as quick as you can and get the ball and call "SPUD!"  If you don't have your number called, you need to run far, far away very quickly until you hear the person's whose number was called yell "SPUD!" and then you freeze.  The "it" person can take three giant steps towards the closest victim and then try and hit them with the ball while they are frozen.  If they get hit, the person they hit gets the letter "S."  If they miss, they themselves get "S."  You play until someone has spelled "S P U D."
14. Blob Tag: This is a variation on tag where when you get tagged, you are stuck to the "it" person until the last person is caught. Fun Games Kids Play has this site that is dedicated to Tag and all of its variations. Varieties of Tag
15. Pass the sign or Animal: Each person in your group picks an animal sign that they make with their hands (eg: one finger sticking out of your forehead, could be unicorn, etc.) After each person has a sign, you pick someone to be in the center of your circle. Have them close your eyes, and pick who will go first. Then have them open their eyes. The person going first, must make their own sign and then the sign of someone else in the circle without getting tagged by the center person. When they pass the sign, that person must make their own sign and then the sign of someone else.  Play continues until the middle person catches them giving a sign.  If the play passes fast enough, it is very hard for the person to tag them even if they can see whose sign is being called.  This is really funny too.  Here is another variation on the game. Animal game variation

I'd love it if you have other games that you play with your families that you can share on here.  I know that by spending time in joyful activities with my family, we become closer and create amazing memories. 

Tropical Orange Spider - Do you know what kind it is??

We were doing yard work the other day and I put a bunch of coconuts into the bag and this disgusting...I mean super cool example of nature popped out of the bag.  BLEH!!  

Do you know what kind of spider this is?  It was about as big around as a baseball or a little smaller than the palm of my hand. 

Bougainvillea in our yard

We saw this rainbow driving home from San Juan

Just Finished my first Crazy Quilt!

This is a quilt for one of my nephews.  I used the book  Crazy Shortcut Quilts by Marguerita McManus and Sarah Raffuse for the basic method, and it worked out great!

I started out with Moda's Layer Cake (40 10x10 pre-cut pieces) from Bunnyhill Design's Lily and Will Collection.

 (Picture courtsey of Fabric Patch)

I picked out my pattern for how I wanted to cut my layer cake and then I cut all of the pieces exactly the same.  Then I mixed and matched all of the different ways that I cut it and came up with some super-cute blocks.  

I pieced them all and then layered them and used the Crazy Shortcut Quilt method of quilt-as-you-go to actually quilt my own project. (Usually I outsource the quilting parts).  It actually was really easy and I think it turned out really well.  It was also a great opportunity to use all of those nifty stitches that I never try out.  

I am going to start another one for my second nephew using Moda's Lily and Will Green and Brown layer cake. I think I might try a Kaleidoscope method. 

Conrad San Juan Condado Plaza - Our Recent Visit

Lounge Lizards

Isn't this the coolest chair EVER??!!

  

My daughter lounging in the Conrad's Lobby. They had a beautiful fish tank with tropical fish and even a nurse shark! If you want to "find Nemo," this is the place! 

The beautiful tropical aquarium in the lobby

I realized that I put Puerto Rico in my Blog title and yet haven't talked at all about our time here.  I guess I'm busy quilting!  Recently, our family was able to visit the Conrad San Juan Condado Plaza hotel in San Juan.  It is a breath away from Old San Juan and the cruise ship terminals too.  We really enjoyed our two night stay at this Hilton hotel located at 999 Ashford Avenue, San Juan.

The room was very spacious.  We had one with two full size beds.  The closet was located in the bathroom and you were wishing for a maid or valet to dress you in the mornings.  The shower was IMPRESSIVE!!  It was a completely glass box set in the middle of the room.  The decor was very modern in the rooms with large, black and white flower pictures.  

Our kids' favorite part, of course, was the pool.  They had three pools including a hot tub.  The pools were too cold for me, but the kids didn't mind at all.  There was also a beach for the hotel just steps away from the pool.  The best part was a water slide that was modeled after El Morro.  In fact, my kids could have skipped El Morro itself and just visited the water slide. 

 

Food was pretty expensive at the hotel, but there was a Chili's within walking distance and a Starbucks on the ground floor of the hotel if you just wanted a sandwich. There was even a Cold Stone Creamery just down the block.  (Can you tell, we miss eating brand name food?  They don't have too many of those on our side of the island.)  

My choices for the book challenge

1. Male Point of View  Hole in My Life
2. ALA Booklist  When You Reach Me (Yearling Newbery)
3. Poll Loser I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls)
4. Mystery The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag: A Flavia de Luce Novel
5. Fantasy Fire
6. Dystopia Girl in the Arena
7. Printz Winner Ship Breaker
8. New Release Outside In (Harlequin Teen)
9. Book in a Series Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)
10. Graphic NovelThe Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief: The Graphic Novel (Percy Jackson & the Olympians)

11. Author Debut The Singer of All Songs (Chanters of Tremaris Trilogy, Book 1)


12. Set in a foreign country Alchemy and Meggy Swann

This should be a lot of fun.  Many are novels I wouldn't have chosen without the challenge.