Welcome Anja, Wii, Wii People, Christmas Lights and To Catch a Thief

I want to congratulate Erin (my niece) and Clayton on the birth of their daughter, Anja, this past Friday night. She's a tiny one. Welcome to the world, Anja. I can't even begin to imagine what the world has in store for you. Erin and Clayton, she looks like a little sweetheart. I'm so happy for you. Congratulations!

My trainee, Kristie, came into work last week talking about the fun she'd had over the weekend playing Wii at her parent's home. It sounded like a blast. I'd tried to find a Wii game console last Christmas as a family gift for the three of us but there were none to be found. Some of the guys at work were saying that they weren't too hard to find now so I went to Target on Tuesday night and sure enough they had a bunch of them. I asked the guy working in the electronics department to load me down with whatever he figured I'd need in addition to the game. I walked away with Mario Cart, two steering wheels and a charging platform for the controllers.

I hid the game away with the intention of giving it to Tammy for her birthday in two weeks. I wouldn't have normally thought to give her a Wii for her birthday but I needed an excuse to not have to wait until Christmas to open it. As it turned out, she mentioned to me on Thursday that she knew what she wanted for her birthday: A Wii. How convenient. She found the game online and wondered if we should order it now in case they once again become difficult to find. I smiled then told her that I had it covered. She pressed a bit further and I admitted that I'd already bought the game. I tempted her by saying that if she begged just a little I would give it to her early. She hesitated but an hour later she gave in and said: "let's do it".

Before you begin playing the game you have to make your Wii, referred to as Mii, character. While Tammy and Rachel set up the game I made a quick run to the store. When I returned they were putting the finishing touches on our Wii-Mii players. I think I'm going to take it one step further and construct my own Wii people in addition to ourselves. I want Jesus on my baseball team.

Wii is unlike any video game I've ever played. Maybe there are others that are better but I think this will work for us. The boxing game is especially fun. I woke up the next morning with a sore right upper arm from all the punches I was throwing. I didn't take any video of us boxing but I did shoot some of Tammy and Rachel playing tennis and bowling.

I was kicking around the idea of taking a pass on outdoor Christmas lights for our house this year but Rachel said she'd like to have them up. That's all I needed to hear. We've only got her with us another couple years. I'll be lazy about putting up the lights once she's off to school.

I was hoping to get them up yesterday but we had an inch of snow overnight making it impossible to get up on the roof. I was able to get most of the job done this morning with maybe another two hours worth of work that I can do sometime this week. I'm glad I took the time to do the lights. It wouldn't seem the same without them.