Holiday weekends are great because they mean extra family game nights. Friday night was Boggle. Saturday's event was canceled due to early bedtimes, a result of infighting among the natives and the corresponding disciplinary measures. Sunday evening was Scattergories. Today started with UT 2004, and they boys are holding a friendly chess/checker tournament in the living room as I type.

Friday night was special because the number of participants increased unexpectantly. Boggle is now a full family game. The lovely princess, just 5 years old, used to draw pictures or write random letters while we played. Now that she is reading, she wanted to play along with us. This resulted in serious gains in the entertainment factor of the game.

When we first started playing this game with the boys, the Queen (May She Live Forever) and I eschewed three-letter words to make things fair. As they have improved in vocabulary, both have voluntarily chosen to play under the same rules as their parents. Thus, up until Friday evening, three letter words may have been present on the board, but not on our papers.

As the first round began, the Princess confirmed how to play: "I make three letter words, right Mommy?" My lovely wife responded in the affirmative and the game was on. When the sand was done falling from the timer, she could hardly contain her excitement. "I got one!", she proudly exclaimed. And there on the paper was the word that she found: TIT. The boys politely turned their heads so their sister would not see their embarassed laughs. Knowing that the girl had no clue what her word meant, the Queen (MSLF) immediately praised her and I joined in, once I regained my composure.

After several dry runs (rolls where there simply are not enough vowels to play an enjoyable round), we finally played the second game. As we scored the round, the Princess again had a single three letter word on her paper: SIN. After round three, she had added GIN to her paper.

At this point we began to speculate what she would come up with in round four. My money was on either SEX or POT. As round four ended, we looked at her paper and found that she had lost interesting in Boggle. She was just drawing pictures; nice pictures, mind you. The sort you would expect from a girl of five. Looking back, it is a relief that she was focused on triads and not trying her hand at four letter words.

Time to go take my turn at chess. I hope you have a safe and enjoyable Labor Day.