SE - I will definitely enjoy the garage and now I can enjoy the basement too, since we will store all our crap in the garage. coldnose - our home is 2025 sqft + about another 800 in walk-out basement. My experience with the panelized package is both good and only OK. Good - lumber was awesome awesome quality. Got the package from farwesthomes, who own their own mill. I have some large beams and posts. Walls went up fast and were square. We had a gable wall (31' peek) with picture windows that went up in a day, my carpenters said it would have taken them over a week to stick build. Lots of left over lumber from packaging (and miscommunication about walkout basement). Price was with-in 10K of other lumber yard quotes (Meeks, 84, Moss Lumber). Able to make custom plans, change their stock plans, use stock plans. The only OK - Still have to stick build floors. not huge deal. Had two miss cuts in posts where beams were to slide in. We fixed it fairly simple, but it took a few hours of head scratching. Had to get engineering separately and then have farwest build plans. Some miss communication between engineer and farwest. It would have been nice if they had an in-house engineer. I was/am not happy with my engineer. Roof rafters suck. Took a month to stick frame the roof. Mislead on difficulty of the whole thing. We were told it would be about 6 weeks to get the whole thing shelled-in. Perhaps with a crew of 10, it took us over double that with a crew of 3-4. No room for play. The walls come square, if your foundation is a little off, you cannot "fudge" the walls. Lay-out (16" on center) gets screwed up do to how the panels fit together. Not a huge deal, but slows you down during siding. All in all, i am happy with it. If I ever do this again, I may or may not use it again. Definitely not pissed or stoked about the whole thing. I am about due for more pictures. We just had a framing pre-inspection today (we were not ready with elect or fire sprinklers). She could not find one thing wrong and was really impressed. We are wrapping up elect on friday and sprinklers go in over the weekend. We will get framing, plumbing, elect inspection on monday. Insulation next week and then sheetrock end of next week and weekend. 12 hour days are getting old. I start summer school on monday. that should be fun.

Check out geekandsundry.com under Tabletop games - lots and lots of board games! My faves to play with the grandkids were Qwirkle, Tsuro, & Ticket to Ride. Settlers of Cataan was also fun, but more mature than my 10-y-o grandchild, but mostly because he doesn't read English well. (He's Japanese.) If your son likes strategic games, there are many more out there - you just need to look!

Mine were where yours is at back in the day. The sticker shock was worse because I really did not believe my three would spend the time playing these games that the price warranted. I was correct. Ours was minimally used. My son chose ping pong, disc golf and learning to juggle over time "gaming". We chose gamebox--My students would say it was the wrong choice. My students who play, play NON STOP in their non school time. These games have become their lives. They play with never seen strangers alone in their rooms and tell us they were not alone. The games they play are "Call Of Duty" and all its versions --all violent and ugly. If I taught a parenting class and if I thought anyone would listen the #1 mistake parents make is buying into the video/social media device purchases. Technology is dumbing down, making social outcasts, ruining our kids. These Gamers will never be captains of industry!!!

Lily, I would play with you too! Maybe you can find a source of games in your community. A venue in my area has Game Night once a month, attended by people of all ages. Some of the games look rather intense and seem to require a lot of thought (Pandemic is one), but I've played lighter games there with a friend. If you're close to my age you could probably find games at a local senior center. You could also poll your friends to see if there's any interest. Who knows--some may be silently yearning for a fun game. Fran, I was thinking about bridge recently. I haven't played since the 1960's, but I'd be willing to read up on it and see if I could join a group. However, I remember my husband was not thrilled with my bridge playing. He was a serious duplicate bridge player, and I like to chat while I play. Chances are the local groups would feel the same way my husband did about my playing style. LOL Foggy, I looked up Telestrations, and it sounds like great fun. But I wonder if the two artists in my group would spoil some of the fun. They are very good. Playing Cranium on my team recently, one of them had to draw a saddle with her eyes closed. It was perfect. Socks, thanks for the tip about Hoot Owl Hoot and Peaceable games!