One of the many highlights from our Carnival cruise this past summer was taking the girls to ‘Hasbro – The Game Show’ onboard the ship.

While we weren’t chosen from the audience to participate on-stage, it was the first time my girls were introduced to larger than life games, like Yahtzee Bowling, Connect 4, Monopoly and more. I loved watching their faces light up and cheering for the contestants.

So when we returned home, I decided we’d have a family game night – snacks, board games and plenty of laughs. The girls were so excited and couldn’t stop talking about how it was just like the games on the ship.

They finally decided on ‘Chutes and Ladders’ – with Dad leading the way, they were battling it out to see who could climb to the top first – with the ladders and slides positioned just right, it took some time to declare a winner and I was secretly excited that we were practicing counting during the game. They were learning and they didn’t even know it!

Our fun continued with Connect 4 – where we practiced sharing and the girls got the silly giggles each time the checkers fell to the bottom of the table. While I’m still not sure if we ever declared winners, they loved taking turns and filling up the board.

The big hit of our game night was Yahtzee. I’m not sure if the girls loved rolling the dice or  yelling “Booyah!” each time it was their turn to roll, but it was hysterical.

As we played, Maggie kept asking me questions about the games and whether I played the same ones when I was a little kid. That launched into me sharing stories about playing Yahtzee with my own parents and outsmarting my sister in Monopoly when we were kids.

When we wrapped up the fun games, Maggie mentioned that this was good practice for us before we go on another cruise. She’s keeping her fingers crossed that we get picked for Yahtzee Bowling next time. And I’m not going to lie – I am too!

 

This post was created as part of my collaboration with Carnival. As always, all of the opinions, thoughts, and ideas in this post are my own.