Once Upon A Time

I found a fun game that I am in love with. It's educational, creative, entertaining, funny, and very unique. I can't remember how I found about it, but I'm so glad I did.


It came late last week courtesy of UPS and Amazon, but we hadn't had a chance to play it with the kids. Tonight I was sorting through some of the new arrivals and Jarom noticed the game, pulled it out, and asked if we could play it. Once we got the 'little' ones in bed the four of us sat around the table and ended up just having a BLAST playing our new little card game called 'Once Upon A Time.'

In fact we had such a great time we ended up playing for 2 hours and we only stopped because it was UH-OH 11:00pm.

We live in a time where family histories, stories, and cultural traditions aren't passed down through oral storytelling anymore. I've read that the last few generations have lost the ability to tell stories for many reasons, but one is the fact that most of us aren't taught how to tell stories because we weren't raised sitting around as a family listening to our parents and grandparents tell us stories every night like they used to do.


That is one of the reasons I am loving this game. The whole game is about learning how to be creative and tell a good stories. WONDERFUL!!! I know I need practice telling stories. Knowing how to tell a engaging story is a valuable tool I would like to use more often when I am teaching my children something that is academic, spiritual, cultural, etc...

I have to admit that at first all of us kind of struggled to make up a story out of thin air. Jarom and Megan were even a bit nervous to say anything for fear of sounding silly. By the end though we were all doing much better...sometimes so distracted by the story that we forgot to try to 'interrupt' so we could take over the story and win the game.


Tonight we TOTALLY blew bedtime for our two big kids, but we shared an experience together that I will remember for a long time. We bonded, connected, laughed, ate, and spent time together. Tonight was priceless and worth not worring about bedtime tonight.

I'll never forget what an inspiring woman once told me. When asked how she jugded if her day was successful she responded that she knew her day had been successful if she was able to make a connection (or in other words stregnthen a relationship) with someone or thing in her life that day. Whether the connection was was with a child, spouse, God, neighbor, family member, scriptures, etc... it didn't matter as long as she was able to make an important relationship in her life stronger!

I will forever be grateful that I heard her say that, because it has made all the difference in my life. It has helped me make sure that my perspective is in line with what really matters most.

Tonight I made a REAL connection with my children and my spouse, and that is what really matters to me in this life. My day was a success!