a game of settlers

Settlers of Catan has got to be my favorite board game of all time, maybe my favorite game overall. I got invited over to Justin Kary's folks' house last night for a game, and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. First, I got to hang out with Justin and Tim (Davis) who were my guys in discipleship in the student ministries at ncc until Tim graduated last year and Justin this. This game turned into a 3.5 hour game. I didn't get home until almost 10pm and I had left around 4:15pm (I'm sorry, Amy). We had a great time playing and goofing around. I would love to have times like that with any of my guys, I mean, the men-who've-now-graduated-high-school (too long of a title?). And, yes, I won (w00t!). It was a long game, slow at times, but the wit around the table kept things interesting. I very much enjoyed myself in their company. If you've never seen Settlers, then below is just a visual taste of the game for you to take in. Maybe you and I should play some time (btw, Amy normally beats me).

These are resource cards that help you build items to increase your points which helps you win.

These are Development Cards from the original game. They are also used with the first expansion to the game, Sea Fairers, but not the third, Cities & Knights.
The Longest Road is used in all three expansions. If you have the longest road, you get two victory points toward your normal goal of 13. The most common ways to get victory points are through building settlements and cities.
This card displays all of the building costs for the original game. There are different things to build on top of these once you reach the Cities & Knights expansion (which is what Justin, Tim, their friend Nathan and I played).
This is Sea Fairers, an expansion to Settlers which includes more water hexes and shipping lanes to add to the Longest Road.