Girlfriends Guide to Gaming

I am not really into video games. I pretty much suck at them. I grew up with a little brother who dominated every single game he touched even when he was 5 years old. I always tried to play with him and ended up losing and then would beat him up because he never let me win. It's true! Ask my brother and he'll tell you how he had to hide from me because I would hit him every time I lost. Sore loser? maybe... :)

Fast forward to me in my mid-twenties and traveling every month to Europe for my job. I had to find something to keep me busy on those long airplane rides besides work and in comes the Nintendo DS Lite. My brother introduced it to me and I played a few games on his and loved it. I've always been a sucker for "brain" or "mind" games than games where you actually "played". Am I making any sense? Anyway, I got one of my own and stocked up on Brain Age, Big Brain Academy and Tetris. I was pretty much hooked on this little machine. The games were super fun and really helped pass the time when I was traveling. Admittedly, it rarely came out when I wasn't traveling as I rarely have free time as it is but on those long plane rides, it was a savior.

About a month ago, I got an email from Justine at Brand About Town inquiring if I'd like to be a Brand Enthusiast for Nintendo. I would still have to be involved in the selection process but if they chose me, the first thing they would do is to throw a party for me and all my friends so that we could play with the Nintendo DSi, which is the latest version of the Nintento DS. Cool right? Since I was already in love with my DS lite, I was pretty much sold so I told her immediately that I was in! A few weeks later, Justine flew to Seattle and met me at Starbucks and we talked about the program and the party. I was bursting with excitement but didn't want to tell anyone the news because I was still in the selection process. When she finally got back to me to tell me that I had been chosen I did a little dance and then sent an email to my best friends so that somebody else would be as excited as I. Once a few friends knew about it, word spread and more and more friends wanted to come until I had over 40 girls on the invite list. I never expected my circle of friends who are so not gamers, we are much more girly girl, shopping types, would be so into it but everyone was so excited! I loved getting emails from my friends on the days coming to the party telling me how much they were looking forward to it.

The party was last weekend and I have to say, it was a huge success! They rented out a loft here in downtown Seattle and decorated it totally cute.

Everyone had a blast playing the games and I loved looking around the room and seeing all the girls so into the DSi's. They set up 5 stations, 4 stations were to play different games and one station to just play with the DSi.

see all the concentration going on? :)

The most popular thing at that station was the camera on the DSi. Everyone had so much fun just taking pictures with it!

gotta love that the DSi takes arm length pictures!
They even printed out the pictures for us to take home!

I didn't play as I was too busy talking to everyone and making sure everyone was having a great time. I did manage to drink 4 glasses of champagne though! Oh right, I forgot to mention that they provided food and drinks for us too!

See how in every single picture of me I am holding a glass of champagne?

I had so much fun and was so happy to see all my friends there. Oh and of course being me, I put it out there to take advantage of the party and get dressed up! All my girls looked awesome and I loved that we got an excuse to put on our cutest dresses and heels.

At the end of the night each of my friends got a DSi of their own! I am definitely going to set up another DSi night for all of us.

Look at those happy faces!

The entire group (minus a few that snuck out before we took the picture)

THANK YOU so so much to Brand About Town and Nintendo. At the end of the night everyone was asking me if I could just throw parties like this all the time. I wish! I'm so glad to have been given this opportunity and will be a Nintendo fan for life! :)

All pictures were provided by Brand About Town. If you are interested in seeing more you can see the rest of the flickr set!