My kids and I enjoy watching game shows. We are big Wheel of Fortune fans. We’ve had that game for our Play Station and also computer. Years ago Cook and I had a computer version for DOS (which was before windows) with horrible graphics, but the game was fun. Joshua and Olivia are pretty good at solving the puzzles, we like to yell out the answer once we figure it out. Sometimes when one of the really long puzzles have been solved, and they read the answer, Benji will say, “Aw…that’s what I was going to say.” We all wonder why people spend money buying vowels, maybe that’s one of the rules. It just doesn’t make sense to us to buy all the vowels…Anniehow!!
We’ve also enjoyed watching Minute to Win It. Benji and Elijah like this one the most. After the show, Benji is always making up his own games. This is a newer show and if you haven’t seen it, this is how it works. You have 10 games to play, advancing up monetary levels. You have 3 lives, so if you lose a game, you lose a life. You have one minute to complete each game. All games use household items, and have some crazy names like: Face the Cookie, Bucket Head, or Junk in the Trunk. You can see all the games and how to play them at www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it . You can win 1 million dollars. Once you make it to the $50,000 level, you bank it. So once you get to that level, you know you are going home with at least that. As you progress through each level, you can “take the cash and dash, or stay and play.” I think the most I’ve seen anyone win was $250,000. It’s a lot of fun to watch, though there is usually a little dramatic moment in each episode. Guy Fieri, the host, will ask the contestants what would winning 1 million dollars mean to them and there’s usually some tears, or someone calls on the phone to encourage the contestant, (sniff, sniff) it’s a brief moment and you hear the contestants story but they don’t stay there long, so that’s good. Then it’s back to the fun of the games. We find ourselves rooting for the contestants, and discussing the strategies of each game, it’s a lot of fun.
All the kids like to watch Wipeout. I’ll watch it with them sometimes, but I just don’t know how the contestants don’t hurt themselves. The kids of course find it hilarious, and I enjoy listening to them laugh through the whole show. It seems a lot of work, and endurance to win $50,000.
The latest show we watched was The Million Dollar Money Drop. This is how the show works. Two contestants receive 1 million dollars in cash at the start of the show. The time I watched it, it was a husband and wife. You answer a total of seven questions. With each question you have two categories to choose from. You get your question, and you have four answers to choose from. Then you have to quickly stack the money on the answer or answers you want. You have to use all the money and you have to leave one answer open. You have 60 seconds to distribute the cash. Then they reveal the answer by dropping all the wrong answers, so if you had any amount of money on the wrong answer, you lose that money. So on the first question, if you split the money 50/50 on two answers, you will automatically lose $500,000. Cook actually sat down with us to watch it. But as the game went on, we were trying to figure out how it worked. By the third question we were like, this is so dramatic. We were trying to see the fun in it, and really couldn’t. With the way the economy is and a lot of people are struggling, I don’t consider this to be a fun game to watch. This poor couple left with nothing!! Answered all seven questions but had nothing to show for it. You could feel their pain each time they lost money!! At least on Wheel of Fortune you get $1000 just for playing. I don’t see this show staying around too long, it’s a little too depressing.
Our family likes to play board games too. My husband is ”a little” competitive, which also makes my children “a little” competitive. Benji and Elijah need help with their “trash talkin’” while they are winning, but we do it all in good fun. For Christmas we added a few games to our collection. Our favorites are: Chess (I don’t play at all), Scrabble, and Othello. We added Connect Four, Trouble and a table-top Fooseball game. Benji is the reigning champ at Connect Four. Elijah is our Fooseball champ. I don’t know how he does it, but I think Benji actually uses some strategy to his playing. Because at times, before he gets the connect four, he’ll put a piece in and say, “Boo-yow” like he knows he’s going to win and he does!! Cook’s sister was in town for the holidays and they had a big tournament, with this one playing that one, and that one playing the winner and in the end it was Benji against her and he won. She is already demanding a re-match. This is Cook’s sister…she is also “a little” competitive, but loves to play games with us. She is a fierce Scrabble player!! But it’s all in good fun!! Sometimes we even break out the Monopoly game…when we can spend a couple of hours playing.
So if you’re looking for something different and fun to do, break out a board game and have the whole family play. The kids will be amazed at the game you used to play when you were a kid…they might even enjoy it.
