Quote of The Week:

"Retirement life is a game. Happy people are the players. Unhappy people are the spectators. Which would you like to be?
from Ernie Zelinski's How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free"

— Ernie J. Zelinski

We spent last evening at the home of Pastor Dale Halvorson and his wife Becky. Also there was our other Pastor, Jared Parmely, with his wife Chris and their daughter Sarah, and good friends Dr. Bill Winkler and his wife Carol. We had been invited for dinner, which was wonderful. What a pleasant and delicious meal we had. It was just a good, down to earth Scandanavian dinner with baked chicken, augratin potatoes, cabbage salad , peas and carrots, dinner rolls, and a wonderful strawberry/raspberry shortcake for dessert.

While we were sitting around after dinner having coffee, Dale commented that he would like all of us to accompany him down to their family room for some additional activities. We all looked at each other wondering what additional activites meant. When we asked him what he meant, he was very cryptic and mysterious about it. So, we just accepted that he wasn't going to tell us anything and we all followed him blindly downstairs. I mean, after all, he IS a minister. He's not going to do anything that wouldn't be appropriate, would he?

Once we got downstairs, he explained that he had a few games planned. I must admit that for just a moment, I thought to myself, "Aren't we a little old for games?" Fortunately, I also immediately thought, "We haven't done something like this for such a long time. It's going to be fun!" And it was.

The first game we played (which Jared recognized as one recently used by a confirmation class), was to identify what Christmas Carol was represented by a drawn picture. There were 24 pictures, and I think most of us figured out the majority of them. But when we found out what the ones that we hadn't figured out were, there were a lot of sore foreheads from slapping ourselves!

Then we moved on to playing a box game called Taboo. The object of the game is to get your team to say a word that is printed on a card, without using any of the words that are printed below the word you have to get your team to say. It's fun to watch other people going through all kinds of gyrations and facial expressions trying to get the others to say a word. Of course, don't forget that they're watching YOU when you're doing it too!

And finally, we played a card game that Jenny and I knew as Nasty Neighbor. I believe Dale called it something else, but I can't remember what he said it was. In this game, you start by dealing only 1 card to each player, and then the number of cards is increased by in each successive hand. After the cards are dealt, the top card on the pile is turned over and that suit becomes trump. The players then each state how many tricks they think they will take (or won't take). As you get more cards in successive hands, it get more difficult to figure out how many tricks you might take or not take. Once there are 7 cards dealt to everyone, then each succeeding hand is reduced by 1 card until the last hand only has 1 card again. It was a lot of fun, especially when through strategy (read this as luck!), you can dump on the the person who is leading, or you can payback someone for dumping on you.

I think in these times of "fast" everything, it is a real treat to spend an evening that lets you slow down and just enjoy the company of good people, wonderful food, and simple, entertaining games that let you laugh and just enjoy other people. We don't do that enough in our society anymore. And I think that's one of the reasons, if not the major reason, that Jenny and I have enjoyed our travels so far. It seems that the people who are involved in the full timing lifestyle all seem to have this same idea about slowing down and enjoying the trip, and quit worrying about getting to wherever it is they're going.

So to Dale and Becky, a heart felt THANK YOU for such a pleasant and enjoyable evening. And to Bill, Carol, Jared, Chris and Sarah, thank you for being good friends that we were able to share the wonderful evening with. We look forward to the next time we can do this, regardless of how long it might be.


( An Evening of Good Company and Fun Games )