It's fun because we were influenced greatly by Eric's friend Gabe, who owns more games than we could ever imagine. And now we are sharing those games with my family, and they are regularly requesting that we bring along our games when we get together for family stuff. It's cool to watch how they are expanding into playing more than just Bohnanza ("the bean game") and starting to know that if it's in our game box, it's probably going to be fun. :)
My favorite right now is Ticket to Ride, which is a US board where you place train cars to go between your destination. Every game is different, because you draw destination cards "tickets" and so that makes for new routes to figure out each time.
Anyhow, this article was a nice introduction to why board games are coming back, even in the age of video games and other activities.