Shhhhhhh! DON'T TELL VANCE!

My husband is a very sweet, kind, generous man.  He has so many good qualities and I love him so much.  BUT, there is one quality about him that can be VERY irritating.  Whenever we play a game of any kind, he is VERY competitive and tends to win A LOT!  This is mildly irritating because I am competitive too, but WHEN he wins,  HE GLOATS!  He gloats BADLY and gets this superior attitude like he is smarter than everyone else. 

Ok, lets rewind a little bit to Christmas.  My main gift to Vance this year was an iPad.  It's the coolest thing I've ever seen!  The APPS that you can download for it are so much fun!  When I was setting up his iPad for him,  I downloaded a few game apps.  WORD SEEK was the first game that we tried.

The game gives you a 4x4 square of letters with point values on each letter (like in scrabble).  The point of the game is to find words by dragging your finger over the letters, which have to be connected either vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. 

You have 3 minutes to get as many words as you can and you get a score at the end based on the letters you used for each word and the value of each letter.    On Christmas day, we began playing as a family, with everyone chipping in to get as many words as possible.  Our high score was only @6000.   Over time since then, Vance has become addicted to this game.  About 4 days ago,  he scored 8400 and he was EXTREMELY proud of himself.  He was SO SURE that nobody would beat his score that he offered $100 to the first person who beat him.  Kerry immediately started playing to try to beat his score (because she is very competitive too!)

Vance may be good and fast at finding words, but I am the person who always reads directions and figures out exactly how things work!

As I was exploring the Main Menu, I saw there was an OPTIONS button.  I clicked on it and discovered something SO WONDERFUL!  You can actually change the size of the game board AND change the amount of time you get to play!   GOLDMINE!!!  I went to Annie's room and closed the door.  I asked her if she wanted to earn $100 for camp next summer.   Of course she did.  When I showed her my discovery, her eyes lit up with delight!  She finds her father's antics very IRRITATING too. 

So we changed the game board  and time limit, and ran the score up to over 10,000 points!  We didn't want to go too high right away.  Then we changed the game board back to the smaller size and time limit.
Annie took the game downstairs and pretended to play for a half hour or so before she announced her SUCCESS!  Vance immediately accused her of cheating, but then realized there was no way to cheat, so he paid up.  Ever since then,  he has been playing for hours every day trying to beat Annie's score!!!!  He got past 9000 last night, so we decided it was time for someone else to run the score even higher.  Everyone is in on the joke now and greatly enjoys watching him sweat.  After Vance went to bed last night,  we ran the high score up to  10,475 and this time Kerry's friend Jojo took credit!  THIS REALLY BOTHERS HIM NOW THAT TWO PEOPLE ARE SCORING HIGHER THAN HIM!

 
So here he is tonight, watching football and playing Word Seek again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again........................  HAHAHAHA!  It warms my heart!!