The Flaming Zombie Bowl

Most of y'all consider this past weekend to be some variation of "Super Bowl Sunday," or something like that. While that holds true, for the most part, to me as well, it's only partially descriptive of what all transpired over that glorious end of the work week we all love.

Our San Antonio niece and her husband spent Thursday through Sunday at our house and managed to pack in many activities, including attending the Super Bowl. Yes, you read that correctly. They actually got to watch the game.....live.....in person! David, Tiffanie's husband, won the rights to purchase two Super Bowl tickets several months ago. To make it even sweeter, he's a Patriots fan. I don't hold that against him, though. As a Cowboys fan, I really don't care about the AFC side of the house.

They decided to make a long weekend of it, and visit some family and local attractions on the Friday and Saturday before the game. Since both Cindy and I had to work on Friday, they met some other family and toured Space Center Houston. I've been there several times, and highly encourage anyone who has even a small interest in manned spaceflight to give it a try. You won't be sorry. On Friday and Saturday night, though, we four spent the evening playing board games. 

Flaming zombies?

photo from Google search

On Friday, we played Flash Point: Fire Rescue. It's a cooperative game, like Pandemic, in that all the players win or lose together as a team. Clicking on the Pandemic link will take you to one of my previous blogs describing this fun game. So, instead of fighting disease outbreaks across the globe like you'd do in Pandemic, you fight structure fires and try to save victims. You win by rescuing 7 victims. It isn't necessary to actually save the house. There are multiple expansions for Flash Point, and even though I have them all, I still haven't had a chance to play them yet.

Flash Point

Neither Tiffanie nor David had played Flash Point before, and Cindy and I have only played it a few times. For the first game, we used one of the basic boards with a beginner level difficulty. We managed to save all 7 victims before the house burned down, and decided to play another round, with a more difficult board. I'll fully describe Flash Point and the other game in their own blog like I did with Pandemic. As much fun as we had playing two different games, they had to get up somewhat early on Saturday to spend time at the NFL Experience.

Brownstone duplex

After Tiffanie and David got back from the NFL Experience on Saturday evening, we set up the table to play Dead of Winter: The Long Night. Like Pandemic and Flash Point, Dead of Winter is essentially a cooperative game, but each player also has a secret objective to accomplish. There may even be a betrayer in the group! While the group works together to achieve a common goal, each individual player must also achieve his or her own secret goal in order to win. 

Dead of Winter

We ground our way through hordes of zombies, scarce supplies and the possibility of a traitor amongst our ranks. The scenario we picked was one of the longer ones, so we had time for one game before all of us retired for the evening.

With Sunday afternoon rolling around, I did set up for another game of Dead of Winter. My mom, sister and brother in law would be joining Cindy and me at the house to watch the game and play Dead of Winter at the same. The game was so good, though, that we ended up watching the whole game and left the colony to fend for themselves.

I'm glad that David, being the Patriots fan he is, got to experience such an epic game in person. We sure enjoyed it here at the house. And we didn't have to stand in long lines for the restroom, either!

What a game! David & Tiffanie at SB 51

photo courtesy of David Flynn

So, dear readers, what did YOU enjoy about Super Bowl weekend? Did you watch the game? Did you do something else? I'd love to hear about it in the comments section below. 

Coming up in the next few blogs, a detailed description of Flash Point and Dead of Winter. I still have a couple of interviews to finish and post as well.

Until next time......

carpe cerevisi