For Valentines Day Laedyn got 2 unicorns. Brandon got a couple outdoor toys and a Hooked on Phonics puzzle/game. Nick got me a fabulous book of infared photgraphs called American Ruins. It's all pictures of buildings around the country that have been abandoned and subsequently fallen to ruin. Pretty cool. Nick got a combo Valentine/Anniversary gift - - - - -
- - - -a Wii!!!!! We've been calling around looking for one since before Christmas and finally, last week, I lucked upon a new shipment at Walmart. I also bought SuperMario Party 8 and Mario & Sonic go to the 2008 Olympics. Mom sent a gift card for WalMart to us for V-day. We went out and bought Playground - another sports type game involving kids outdoor games like tetherball, paper airplane races, kickball and more.
As another fabulous addition to our Wii system, Jennifer bought us Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) with a 2nd dance mat. This was an early anniversary gift - but she insisted we open it right away. This game is ADDICTIVE! In the first 24 hours of owning it we logged about 7 hours of dancing! Saturday night Jennifer & Mark stayed over dancing with us until after one in the morning. The next morning I got up and danced some more. There's a workout setting that you can enter your weight into and it calculates how many calories you're burning! If the way my muscles feel is any indication of the physical benefits of DDR and these other games, I have benefitted greatly in the past few days.
DDR has 4 skill levels. The beginner is usually pretty easy to keep up with. We've been doing the Basic level for the most part, which is a challenge for all of us. The thing about the dance pads is that they can control the selections in place of the hand controller. One time someone accidentally changed the skill level to EXPERT! It was hysterical...we tried it at that level a few more times just for laughs - and there were alot of laughs! See Mark in the background with the hand controller? Jennifer refuses to do the hand part of the dancing, so the spectators took turns doing her hands for her.


Brandon is a boxing genius. None of us could beat him, and he seems to be tireless. Yesterday no one had the enrgy to box with him, so I set him up as a single player boxing the computer. He knocked out all his opponents in the first round. Some of them within seconds. It's crazy. Look at the blur of his hands as he boxes with Jennifer. When he boxed Mark, Mark was sweating and panting from exertion by the time they'd finshed their match. Mark was beat in more ways than one ... Brandon, on the other hand, was ready to go another few rounds!