As any Minnesotan will tell you, we have really long winters. It can easily be cold and snowy from October through May. People still talk about the Halloween Blizzard of 1991. It even has a wikipedia entry (here). Let’s just say a lot of costumes had to be modified that year, and there weren’t any naughty nurses or sexy cops out walking around (thank you for that Mother Nature). We normally don’t let the weather stop us from doing anything outside, but when it’s well below zero in the dead of winter with wind chill advisories and frostbite advisories and the weatherman is telling us not to be outside for any longer than necessary, we stay in. And indoor entertainment is not as fun. We hear that pets and kids are like built-in entertainment, but since we haven’t made those leaps yet, we turn to a few toys that are really fun for kids and adults alike (and that we can nicely place in a cabinet when we are done with them).
Our newest additions circa Winter 2011 are our hogs. Air Hogs that is. We. Love. Them. They are miniature remote controlled helicopters. We just have the basic models, but the fun people at Hogs offer ones that shoot darts and models with cameras on them too to capture video as you fly. It all started for us when Dain’s mom gave him one for Christmas.
I honestly thought it was kind of silly when I saw it, but I quickly changed my mind after I took her for a spin. Dain did not approve of my piloting skills (or lack thereof) so my flight time was heavily monitored to make sure I wasn’t taking the popcorn (ick) off the ceiling or crash landing in our plants. So when Dain received another one as a gift a few weeks later for his birthday, he decided that I could use the old one (and only that one), and he would use his new coast guard rescue chopper.
We flew them in our house throughout the winter, and they made us laugh every time. Dain is much more skilled with both of the hogs. I happily fly mine into everything, which typically makes me laugh even harder. Like hysterical fits of laughter.
They take regular AA batteries and have to be charged frequently, but we use the rechargeable batteries so we don’t have to replace them all the time. The charger is built into the navigation system, which is pretty darn convenient. And we look at these frequently at Target so I bet next winter we’ll be investing in the deluxe models so we can shoot darts at each other.
While our hogz were charging, we also occasionally played our Wii over the winter. We don’t have very many games, but watching Dain do the hula hoop game on the Wii Fit can seriously make my day. For some reason guys are challenged when it comes to moving their hips. Biology I guess, which I never excelled at. Just Dance is also really fun (and totally my game), but I do find that the little nunchuk connectors are far too short for an adult getting her groove on. Apparently they sell wireless adaptors, but we are never that on top of new technology in this household (as in I still tape my shows on VHS in a VCR…mmmm hmmmm.)
We also have two party games, but you definitely need more than two people to have fun with these.
And now that summer is creeping in, here’s what we rock during the warmer months. We love ourselves some frisbee.
We definitely also need to invest in a bocce ball set for the yard, and we are planning to build a bean bag toss game. Stay tuned for a step-by-step tutorial on that. Hope you have a fun Memorial Day weekend wherever you find yourself.
