As seen in the March issue of Bella magazine

I love games. Scrabble, Yahtzee, Monopoly, I love ‘em. Frequently I chase my family members around the house saying, “Wanna play a game?” Or the more challenging, “Want me to whup you at Battleship?” Sadly, no one really shares my love of board games. Despite their reluctance, I keep trying to plant seeds of board game love. We have a full game closet and a family room dripping with games, yet we get one or two new additions each year. This year, Julia got The Game of Life and Alex got Apples to Apples. We’ve played each game once. You see, there’s a new sheriff in town. The video game.

65% of American families play video or computer games. Although I tried for years to NOT be a part of that statistic, we succumbed. Well, Dave did. I had highfalutin’ opinions about how game systems are proven to give kids ADD while turning their brains to jello and ruining their chance of higher education or future happiness. Still, my darling husband Dave bought our first system, N64, about 10 years ago. He snuck it in the house late one Saturday night in the spring. The next morning, he blithely blamed it on the Easter Bunny.

Once that first system arrived, they kept coming. Sort of like the kids. You see, once we had one system, we wanted another one. We loved it just that much. I asked the kids to list these boxes that have lived in our home. Apparently, after the N64, we’ve owned several GameCubes, multiple Playstation 2s, an xBox, and a stunner that arrived this Christmas, the Wii. Here’s the problem. Once you buy a system, you need the controllers, the games and all the cool accessories. Then, moments after you’re done purchasing everything you need, your friends procure the next, far better system (so they claim), and voila! your system is passé. In order to keep up with the Jones (as well as keep the kids plugged in instead of riding bikes or reading the classics), you’ve got to keep buying more stuff. Frankly, it only took 4 minutes before I was sick of the whole mess.

Once, Alex, our oldest son, wanted to offload his GameCube in order to purchase another system. Being a 21st century kid, he naturally offered his GameCube for sale on eBay. The whole family was excited as we watched the bids mount. He was only 12 years old and since the system was a gift to him, he was looking at pure profit from the sale. Then we ran into a snag. An interested party posted an inquiry asking if he had any games that went along with the system.
He answered, “I can throw a few in.” While this sounds suave and all, his mother nearly swallowed her tongue. The games run about $50 a pop, so selling the system for $100 would mean zero profit if he “threw in” two games. I did what any mom would do. I started bidding against this woman, seeking to drive up the price. It was working great, really great. The price was going up and up and up. Until, in my greed, with 60 seconds to spare, I bid one last time…and inadvertently won the bid.

“MOM!” Alex groaned at top volume, “You just BOUGHT my GAMECUBE!” Oops.

Until recently, that eBay debacle was the only time I had anything to do with a game system in our house. That is, until this Christmas. You see, this year our generous Uncle Dan gifted us with the Wii entertainment system and all the cool accessories. (Thanks, Uncle Dan! Thanks, Aunt Janet!) Wii fell in love with it. Yes, even Mii. I was hooked from the early moments of Christmas day. The first thing you do is make a little Mii character who is your avatar on the game. You should see how tall, thin and fresh-faced my avatar is! She doesn’t have a single wrinkle! She looks just like me 25 years ago. And you should see her bowling! Okay, well, she bowls like she’s playing softball, but she doesn’t have wrinkles and never yells at her kids or goes out without lipstick.

Wii are now so cool. Wii have joined with the 50 million others who have welcomed their own darling Wii to their family room. Since Wii have welcomed our Wii, everyone wants to play a game with Mom. Or Dad. Or the cats. They’ll play with anyone who can swing the remote, pretending it’s a golf club, a tennis racquet or a bowling ball. It’s the most exercise we’ve gotten together in years. What differentiates Wii from the other systems we’ve had? In a word, fun. This system is one that everyone (even Mom!) can play.

Dad loves it, too. He’s joined the 26% of gamers who are over 50. (And great news! Video games are now becoming popular in nursing homes! He’ll be all set!) When asked what it’s like to play with Dad on the Wii, here are some of the comments from his five adoring children.

Now, doesn’t that sound like family time at its greatest??? That’s why I say, with pride (and only a little chagrin), “Wii are family.”

Martie Smith Byrd lives in Roanoke with her gaming husband, Dave, and their 5 teenagers. Her Wii fitness age is 73. Martie is a speaker and writer. To see family pictures or read more, log on to www.martiebyrd.com.

It came like a message from heaven, except, okay, I actually read it on the side of a bright blue bus in the Sam's Club parking lot. Believe in Something Better. Yes! That's what I want! I know I'm not alone. For isn't that the cry of our hearts? The search for significance? To believe in something better..and bigger...and brighter than ourselves?

It was an ad for a cell phone company. Is that as good as it gets? Is that what we are willing to settle for? "More bars in more places"? Give me a break. When we think of believing, will we settle for what Madison Avenue tells us is important? (With my background in advertising, I'm very afraid we do.)

I do believe in Something Better. Hear me as I shout from the top of Mill Mountain in Roanoke, "I will no longer settle for what the world says is better!" You see, I believe in ultimate Truth. I believe that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life.

Not "a" Way. The Way.

Not "a" Truth. The Truth.

Not "a" Life. The Life.

That's Something Better. Believe.

As Seen in the February 2009 issue of Bella Magazine

Our family of seven isn’t invited too many places. Those who invite us to stay at their homes can be:
a) instantly nominated for sainthood
b) listed on the fingers of one hand
c) seen calling Stanley Steamer as our van pulls away
d) all of the above.

It’s not that we mean to be a traveling catastrophe. That’s just the way we roll. Once a year or so, we embark upon a New England Odyssey to visit family and friends. This consists of us spending one or two nights in each of three or four states, while we rack up 1,600 miles on the odometer. Now, doesn’t that sound like fun??

When the kids were smaller, we thought we had it rough because we had to pack diapers and bottles and their itty bitty clothing. Now, all of our children are adult-sized except for 10-year-old Julia. Being the little one, she gets crammed in the back, between two man-sized brothers. She usually ends up crying at some point. Who can blame her?

Our seven-passenger van is ridiculously small to hold both our family AND our luggage. Heading off with our brood is akin to fitting a bunch of clowns in a VW Bug. To make more space in the car (without leaving kids at home!), we’ve tried various car toppers. We haven’t had much luck. One car topper howled so badly that we all wanted to pluck ourselves bald by the end of the trip. The next car topper, the famed “Soft Pack”, was mercifully quiet. It lay silently on top of the van, sucking all of the moisture out of the sky. When we arrived at our destination, oh, how delighted we were to find that all of our duffels, pillows and sleeping bags were drenched. Our entire visit to Grammy and Grandpa involved bringing our wet items to the Laundromat. Can you say “family fun”?

Everyone wants to be comfortable on a trip. When the kids were little, their comfort came in the form of a little “lovey” object, like a stuffed animal, and perhaps a baby blanket. Now, comfort has hit the Big Time. We begin with ten pillows and five blankets so no one is forced to share. Then we add a cooler, snacks, iPods, headphones, Gameboys, games, chargers, cell phones, books, schoolwork that never gets touched but likes to go traveling, and our two specialty totes. One tote holds all of our cosmetic bags or “ditty bags” as we lovingly call them. The other large tote is for shoes.

On an average trip, we will carry fourteen pairs of shoes. If there is going to be a dressy occasion, add seven pairs. Recently, in a desperate attempt to simplify, I assigned the dress shoes their own tote bag. Now, doesn’t that sound simple?

On the Odyssey, we had a small near-catastrophe which involved putting a cheap plastic suitcase next to a burning hot radiator. The suitcase melted. We salvaged what we could, and tossed the suitcase. Casting about for a new suitcase for the Traumatized Traveler, my eyes lit upon the dress shoe tote. Lickety-split we emptied it of shoes and made it the new suitcase. The dress shoes would have to travel home in a kitchen trash bag.

Because we try our level best to be nice guests, we always sweep, strip the beds, wipe the bathroom counters and of course, take out the trash. We do this because it’s the right thing to do, and also so that if we aren’t invited back, we can be sure it wasn’t because we trashed the joint. We did all this tidying up before leaving The Melting Suitcase Inn.

Fast forward to the morning when the boys realized they had to wear dress shoes to school that day. The nice shoes were nowhere to be found. When they played the game of “When was the last time you saw your shoes?”, the sad answer was, you guessed it, at The Melting Suitcase Inn. In our frenzy to clean spic and span, one of our fabulous helpers chucked an extra trash bag. And that’s how all of our dress shoes ended up in a dumpster in Massachusetts. (C’mon, who could even MAKE this stuff UP??)

You can clearly see that traveling with our five teenagers is a total laugh riot. Yet, it’s a lot more pleasant these days than when we had five kids under the age of six. I think it’s because the kids are old enough to pack their own luggage AND carry it to the car. Instead of bottles we pack Dr. Pepper. Instead of Disney sing-along songs, we can all rock out to the Mama Mia soundtrack. Recently we were stuck in traffic for two hours and not a single child burst into tears or struggled to get out of their seats. We’ve come a long way, baby!

Traveling with my family is finally something akin to the fantastic bonding experience I always dreamed of. In my eyes, you can’t play The License Plate Game too many times. When asked to comment on how he feels about long car trips with the family, our handsome (single!) 17-year-old son Alex says, “I just sleep the whole time.” Come to think of it, that’s a survival strategy he often employs. C’mon, Alex, get your head in the game! I think I just saw a license plate from New Mexico!


Martie Smith Byrd , husband Dave and their brood enjoy the simple life in Roanoke, VA. She writes this missive on the eve of another scintillating road trip, this time to Jacksonville, FL. Log on to http://www.martiebyrd.com/ to see what happened on that trip. By the way, Alex says to take out the word “single.” But he does concur that he’s handsome.