It’s nearly at the end of my Mother’s Day here and it’s gone pretty well overall. This morning, the Scientist and I drove up to take his mum out for lunch at an Indian restaurant that has some nice food. The boys opted to stay home, which was okay as it was far less expensive without hungry teens to feed. :) The restaurant was mostly empty so it seemed like we should get good service, at least at the start. However, the woman who served us was as unsmiling as on our previous visit. The food took a long time to come but it tasted good, so was worth the wait. The Scientist got the meat thali (a combo of three small dishes of meat curry plus dahl and a couple side dishes…and a small dessert slice). His mum and I both got the vegetarian version and the curries were quite nice. There was a lot of rice served with the meals plus a naan bread and a pappadam…they were all very nice. We should have gotten a can of soft drink with our meals as they were lunch specials… but completely forgot until after we were on the way home…Anyway, it wasn’t offered. The Scientist recalled this happened on the previous visit too although we did remember to ask for it then. The two previous times I’ve eaten their food, it was incredibly hot but this time it was quite mild…Had we known we could have asked for more heat…anyway we will know for next time. We then took his mum home and hung out for a short while before coming home.

We went to the gym soon after we returned home then came home to prepare for the evening. The plan with the boys was to play some board games and watch Doctor Who at 7:30pm. The decision as to which game(s) was rather difficult due to the significantly increased choices now available. I finally decided upon Discworld and used the special day as an excuse to encourage Lego Lover to play this time. I wasn’t sure how that would work and it seemed like it might go a bit pear-shaped as he was rather crotchety about it at the beginning. We’d tried to insist once before and he was totally uncooperative and uninvolved so we switched it to just three players that time. Today, however, he did take a bit more part in the proceedings and I think he kind of liked the game even if he never admitted it. It went pretty well this time but was quite interesting as the dynamic changes quite a bit with the extra player. The Scientist won this time and it was time to decide on another game.

In an act of some goodwill towards Lego Lover for taking part, I asked him which game he thought we should play next and he chose Puerto Rico. It’s a fairly long game so I wasn’t too sure about playing so late in the day when we had a tv program to watch afterwards. Game Fanatic wasn’t at all keen to play as he finds the game kind of boring due to the theme of it. I decided to make a go of it since Lego Lover was so put out…Obviously this meant we wouldn’t be watching Doctor Who tonight…which makes it every episode we’ve watched after the broadcast this season. What I had forgotten most was how terribly long the set up for the game is…There’s no good way to hurry it along either. Once set up we also had to refresh our memories of how to play. Eventually we got into the swing of it and all went pretty well. Lego Lover particularly enjoyed it and I noticed how much better his game play was this time compared to earlier games. Game Fanatic had a fair bit of bad luck so eventually stopped making much effort at the game and I just plugged away at it. After nearly two hours, we reached the end and the Scientist had won again…so  it was a good night to play for him.

Last night I also played a second game of Summoner Wars with Game Fanatic since it’s one of his favorite games right now. It’s only a two player game  (can be expanded though) so it’s not had a lot of play as yet. It’s only been a few weeks but I’d forgotten most of the game play. Also I had a different deck of cards this time which made it a bit harder. Our first game only took about 45 minutes but we went well over an hour last night and I managed to win by some luck and a bit of help from Game Fanatic…he didn’t let me win but he did point out a few moves in the course of the game. I told him we have to play more often so I don’t forget and so that I learn to play well enough to be properly competitive. I found the game a lot easier than Magic the Gathering was when we last played nearly two years ago.

Now it’s late night and I’m hoping to get in touch with my mom soon to wish her a happy day. Or I will wait until tomorrow morning and catch up with her.