Card shark

I recently taught the kids a couple of card games, and their favorite so far is War. Sunday evening we sat up on my bed, and they were completely stoked to learn a new game. The funny thing is, although it is a game of completely random chance, based on luck of the draw, and involving no strategic skills whatsoever, for some reason Lucia ALWAYS wins. It is pretty amazing. I figure that this is just another example of how much of a Manning/Blanchard she is. Colin, of course, is a clone of his father, and the Deons are just not a card family. Lucia, meanwhile, pulls Aces out of nowhere, and does the Manning/Blanchard blood running through her proud. Every time she wins, I imagine Grandma and Grandpa looking down on her and beaming with pleasure at my little girl. It is also kind of nice, because Colin is so into board games right now, and being just a bit older, is able to beat her most of the time. But Lucia has found her niche, and I am so looking forward to having her as my euchre partner in a few years.

In a related story, I have had a couple of people look at me in amazement when I shuffle the cards by doing that thing where you cut the deck in half, bend the halves in your hands and then sort of shuffle them together, bend them backwards, and shuffle them together again. 2 of my friends were like, "WOW! Where did you learn to do that?" And I was so puzzled, I thought everyone knew how to do that.