Monthly Archives: August 2020

Family, Photo-A-Day

Building Birdhouses With Grandfather

Birdhouses with Grandfather

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00584

Our kids and my niece and Nephew got some real world building training from my dad today. Each Summer the kids attend Science School in Woods Hole. This year, however, tings are happening remotely with my sister, Tara in charge. My dad came up with the idea of building bird houses with the grandchildren. He had the scrap wood and he cut all the pieces to size and then set up a plank on sawhorses with taped off sections for each of the kids. He had some help in supervising the kids but he showed them how to hammer a nail and then he also drilled some guide holes for the kids. I did not get to see everything happening because I was taking my Krav Stripe test via Zoom in another part of the yard. The kids were so proud of their creations and loved spending time with my dad.

Tonight we had a movie night in the back yard and played an 80’s classic, The Karate Kid. Eva made it all through the movie but Andy decided that it was getting late so he put himself to bed.

Photo-A-Day, Review, Toys

Will You Help the Dwarves Collect Gold or Will You Be a Saboteur?

Saboteur

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00583

Thank you Amigo Games for sending us free review units of Saboteur, Saboteur 2, Saboteur Duel and Saboteur the Lost Mines. Opinions are our own.

Being in this pandemic has been a challenge for all of us. For parents it can be really tough finding games and activities that the entire family can enjoy together. Luckily I work with a bunch of great toy and game companies and have been able to try out a ton of games.

The latest game that has come to the house is called Saboteur. In this game you are either a Dwarf in a mine looking for gold or you are a Dwarf in a mine looking to prevent the other dwarves from gathering gold. The game can be played with up to 10 players and I think that with more players this would be much more challenging to determine the Saboteur in the midst. For one thing there could be multiple Saboteurs. That is very tricky to nail down who is trying to thwart your progress when it can come from multiple players.

We played with the four of us and in the first round there were no saboteurs but that did not prevent us from being suspicious.

The kids love games like this because they like to gang up on me. I think that they will do that when we add the cards from Saboteur 2 to the mix. This add on to the original game introduces team play to the game. We’re going to be playing that one next. Before that, however I’ll get a few rounds of the solitaire version of Saboteur Duel. This is a stand alone game and does not require the original Saboteur to play and is played with only 1 or 2 players. Then there is Saboteur: The Lost Mines and this game is the first Saboteur board game. It has much of the play dynamic of Saboteur but adds even more wackiness and challenge.

With these games we’ll be looking side eye at everyone in the house for some time to come.

Gameplay lasts about 30 minutes, the rules are pretty simple to follow and the game is recommended for ages 8 and up. Andy had no trouble with any of it. You can pick these games up from Amazon for a good price and if you do so please consider using our affiliate links below.