We bought a Wii

A long, long time ago, when Connor was a baby, Kevin and I decided not to have video games in the house until he was ten years old.

There were many reasons for this.

One was the cost.  Think of how much we have saved by not buying the newest systems and games whenever they were released.  Our last one was a Play Station 2.  We've basically saved on everything since then.

Another reason was so that we would be able to easily limit how often our kids were playing video games.  By not having them at our own home, they were an occasional treat only when we were somewhere else that had them.

By not having games in the house for a long time, we figured that the system that we eventually did buy would be amazing and have much better technology and graphics than anything we were used to.

Well, anyways, we managed to keep to it for a little more than seven years.  And that's not too shabby.

Our resolve had been somewhat weakened this past Christmas when the Xbox One was released.  Both Kevin and I seriously considered buying it in total secret as a present from Santa.  In the end, neither of us did.  I'm really glad that we didn't both end up doing it, or we could have easily had two!

The main reason we decided not to get the Xbox One at Christmas was the lack of good kids' games to play on it.

So, this past weekend, Connor and Lex were super happy to come with me to Toys R Us to purchase their very first game system:  a Nintendo Wii U.  We picked this one because it has a ton of great games for kids.

And the main reason that we got the video game system was so that Kevin would have something fun to do with the boys at home.

We got two (three?) games:  Super Mario Bros. U (that comes with Super Luigi U) and Mario Kart 8.

Kevin and I love Super Mario.  It's the game that we remember from our own childhood, but better.  It's so much fun to play.  Fine, we love Mario Kart, too.

Here's a short clip of the boys playing their new game:


One of my favorite things is that our kids learned about the internet before they learned about Mario, so they keep calling Bowser "Browser" instead.

P.S.  I realize that this seems like less than ideal timing for the purchase of a new game system.  I mean, everyone is heading back to school.  We aren't starting school until after Labor Day, so they still have a few more weeks of summer.