Sorry for the interruption but I was out of town for most of the holiday (we left the 26th for Chicago, but thats a whole post on its own!). I did however, want to brag about some of the Christmas Gifts that blessed our house this season though.

Amy’s big gift this year is to have the Master Bath and Bedroom repainted. When we bought the house from her parents, we inherited the DEEP red color of the bath and bed room. Its a dark red (think maroon) that is hard to match colors with. Now we’re going for a lighter, beachier look and are painting them Beachnut (its a lowes color). The master bath is done (Amy found some Votive candle holders at a store in Nashville), next on to the bedroom!

Grace had a very Hannah Montanna Christmas. She got a Hannah Montanna Guitar Game (like Guitar Hero) that plugs in to the tv, a Hannah Costume, and doll. Its pretty cool and she likes pretending to be a rockstar. Maybe someday. I like playing her game (since I haven’t bought Guitar HEro World Tour yet) and she’s getting better at it.

Mose got a Trampoline. One of her favorite things to do is jump. We’d wake on Saturday mornings to the heavy thud of emma jumping up and down in our door way. Now she can do it all she wants and it doesn’t make the house shake. Its pretty cool and Grace and Emma take turns on it. Amy wanted to try it out, but its for people under 80 pounds (and neither of us meet that requirement!

The girls also got some tinkertoys, and some other little odds and ends that they like to play with, but the coolest by far is my Ultimate Wall-E Robot.

We saw the movie in the theaters and we’re big fans (mose loves him). We had seen the Ultimate Wall-e at the Disney Store but we weren’t going to get him because of the price tag. Needless to say, Santa found him on Sale and he was wrapped and under the tree for me on Christmas morning. He has fun dancing, chasing the dogs around and just exploring on his own. If you haven’t seen one yet, I’ll work on some video and see if I can get anything posted. Its pretty cool though and the way he can respond to voice commands or find his own way around the room is fairly smooth.

Was there one gift that you prized more than the others??

I’ve never been on the cutting edge of gaming technology. I bought my first nintendo second hand from a friend years after it first came out. We had a Sega Genesis that I never really did much with and Amy and I still have an original Play Station that we fire up once a year for Scrabble or a Super Puzzle Fighter match. Otherwise, I’m content to not game too much. Except for the wii.

I bought the wii last year from a friend who found that he played his xBox more (xbox is still the ruler for FPS like HALO) and I’ve played it a bit. Downloaded the free stuff and even bought Super Mario Brothers for it (talk about OLD technology). I was surprised when I tried to locate a Wii Fit online last Wednesday when it came out, that I was able to order it no problems from Toys R Us.com. They even had a deal where I could get We Ski on sale at the same time, so I went ahead and got it as well.

The wii fit came yesterday. Amy’s having a Heritage Makers Celebration at the house tomorrow, so we said we’d put the Fit away and clean the house. Maybe pull it out on Sunday. Well, after a night of cleaning, I sat down on the couch to unwind a bit before bed and I pulled the box out and started opening it. Amy didn’t object. What followed was a hour and a half session of Wii Fit and Super Mario Brothers.

I have to say, I was pretty impressed. So far, the only thing I don’t like about it is the fact that you have to sync it with the wii for EVERY game that works with it. So I had to sync it for the wii fit game, and when we finally open We Ski, I’ll have to sync the board again. Its not too much of an issue, just a pain, but I can understand why it does that (it uses the 4th controller location, and if it sync’d permanently, then you wouldn’t be able to use the 4th wiimote). We setup out mii’s and were checked out in no time.

According to the Fit, my BMI is about 18 and amy’s is higher (but we knew that for the most part). My wii age is 39 (only 9 years off) and amy’s is again, higher. Not too much of a surprise. Amy was the first to go and she tried the yoga, needless to say, we weren’t dressed right, for it, but it wasn’t hard to follow and the basic exercises were easy to do. After amy got done with the yoga, I tried my hand at the balance games. Talk about hard.

The game where you are head butting soccer balls, is near impossible on the beginner level and the shoes and panda heads don’t make it any easier. The downhill slalom is fun as well and will take a little bit of time and the ski jump is pretty cool as well. Table tilt was by far the one balance game that was the best workout, as you really had to stay on your toes to drop the balls through the holes. We haven’t tried the strength training or the aerobics yet, but if they’re anything like the other areas, they’ll be pretty good as well.

Nintendo has done an excellent job with the wii fit. The package was nicely put together and the board seems sturdy enough (its rated up to 330 pounds). It came with 4 AA batteries, which is nice as thats what it wants and was pretty easy to get going. We’re going to keep track of our improvements over the next couple of months and I’ll post updates….