The Buttercup Neighborhood Game

 We played a lot of board games over the holidays--including Wingspan, Telestrations, Codenames, Coup, Nertz, Trash, Magic the Gathering, 10 Days in Europe, and Dixit.  We enjoyed the more laid-back time to play together and only had a few grumpy moments when the competition got a little fierce.  Haha!  

But there was another game we played over the holidays that I haven't mentioned yet.   It involved the whole neighborhood and some equally tense competitive moments, and also some very silly moments.  

It was all about this cute little Christmas inflatable named Buttercup. 

Basically Buttercup was purchased by the H family in our neighborhood and was introduced as a sort of reverse hot potato.  But instead of trying to get rid of it, the goal was to steal it from a neighbor's porch and see how long you could keep it inflated on your own porch. 

 

   In order to be an official participant in the game, you had to join the Buttercup GroupMe and follow along with the updates and rules.  That GroupMe was one of the funniest things I'd been a part of in a long time and it was quite humorous to see the silly {and competitive} side of our neighbors.  

We didn't even try to attempt any heists until Adam arrived home, but once he was home, the game was on!    He had a few unsuccessful steal attempts where he was caught before escaping, but I thought it was quite funny that the first time we actually managed to steal her was just after attending the temple together...

We took a little drive around the neighborhood on the way home and Adam snagged her in his church clothes.  Haha.  

We were quite proud of our conquest and guarded her pretty fiercely until we went to bed. 

  Guarding it meant playing games while sitting on our stairs just inside the door, then opening the door and yelling "we caught you!" to the would-be thieves.  

We caught a few and met a new neighbor in the process.  Much to our surprise, Buttercup actually stayed put overnight and was stolen while on our morning walk the next day.    Once we'd experienced the "thrill" of capturing and guarding her for ourselves, we didn't try too hard for a few days.  But then Kristina's family came to town and all that changed.   The second the boys heard about the Buttercup game, they were excitedly all in!  

Honestly it was a fun excuse to get out on neighborhood walks with the boys...

and the boys were far more diligent Buttercup guardians than we had been.   They literally sat outside waiting to yell at anyone who dared attempt a heist.   At one point in the final couple days of the game, the games keeper had  to change the rules to only allow an hour of "puppy guarding", because there were a whole lot of eager young boys out of school and willing to even sleep outside for the cause.  

It was a sad moment when Buttercup got stolen on New Year's Eve night and the boys'  final attempts in the last hours of the game (New Year's morning) proved unsuccessful, despite their coordinated efforts with fellow-would-be thieves to outsmart the conquering family.  

All in all, it turned out to be a fun distraction over the holidays and I 10/10 would recommend, as long as you get everyone on board with understanding the rules and the idea that it's all in good fun!   

Highlights and Lowlights

A little glimpse at the highlights and lowlights of this week: 

Celebrating: 
When I was a student driver back in the day, I couldn't get my driver's license until I went to the DMV and took a very stressful behind-the-wheel test which required driving through unusually configured intersections and parallel parking under pressure.  I remember a lot of my friends failing it the first few times they took it ...not me though!  I passed it the first time and and pretty much aced the parallel parking!   A fact at which I still will happily gloat about all these years later!  :)

Glen's experience was very similar, except that he can additionally boast that he passed the UK driving test the first time, which I understand to be a rare feat for gringo Americans. 

So with those expectations in our mind,  imagine our surprise when Spence came home from his last day of behind-the-wheel training (with the sleepy instructor) with a blue sheet of paper that wasn't just a certificate of completion as we expected, but actually his temporary license!    No behind the wheel tests at the DMV!   No parallel parking under pressure!   He is official and we celebrated with a little family excursion to Rita's (Spencer's new favorite frozen treat shop)!!! 

Being Neighborly:
Although my family loves to eat ham, we generally only have it on Easter....sometimes Christmas.     So imagine my family's absolute delight, when earlier this week our neighbor, Richard, showed up with a HoneyBaked ham as a gift to help us celebrate Spencer's recent clean check-up.  Glen and the kids weren't just happy about the ham, they were ecstatic!   Not only were they getting ham on a non-holiday, but they were getting a HONEYBAKED ham...our very favorite!  Our dinners and lunches this week have been ham-filled and delicious!   What a blessing to have such wonderful neighbors! 

Lots and lots of cupcakes:
 Cami baked cupcakes for another wedding!  This time it was 15-dozen mini cupcakes in her top 5 flavors (Greek yogurt with strawberry frosting, Andes mint, red velvet with cream cheese icing, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, and lemon).  We didn't hear how they went, but based on the goof-ups that we got to sample, I would guess that they disappeared quickly!

Fancy Breakfast:
When I told Emma that she could make  a hot breakfast for us this morning, I did not expect her to whip up a batch of cinnamon rolls from scratch!   Yum! 

A fun project:
I don't consider myself a very creative person, but I love to take other people's ideas and add my own little twist.  This fun project I did for YW and for my family took up a whole day and turned my house into a giant mess, but I loved every second of it! 

Lowlights:

R.I.P.
My fifteen-year-old  KitchenAid finally burned out and died.  Held together by duct tape for the last several years, this workhorse has mixed together countless batches of cookies, cakes, fillings, and bread, and this week it finally lost its will to go on mixing.  I will be mourning its loss every time I knead  together a batch of bread by hand. 

Ugly duckling apples:
Making our own caramel apples sounds like it should be in the highlight section and tastewise they would be, but since I had set out on a mission to make our caramel apples pretty this year, I have to put these ugly ducklings in the lowlights!

Not being prepared: 
One of my kids, who shall remain unnamed, gets an F- in Preparation 101.  Three late-night trips driving around town looking for forgotten ingredients and a hard-to-find, but necessary item (mini cupcake liners) did not bode well for sleeping this past weekend! 

Germs:
Down with a cold most of the week,   I am ready to be done with Kleenex and Benadryl.   Besides the lack of sleep, the worst part about being sick was missing book group.  One of my favorite opportunities  for intelligent conversation with other women, I was sad to have to stay home.  

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