Nintendo Rules!

For Christmas my daughter, Tilly, got a Nintendo DS Lite. I bought it from Amazon. I picked the super cute Ice Blue with a little patten leather carry case. She loved it. We all loved it. The whole family got hooked on playing Brain Age, trying to out intellect each other in the brain games.

In April, Tilly's DS would not turn on. We charged it and it still would not turn on. We tried plugging it in to different outlets to see if that was the problem. The charging light came on but it seemed as though it was not charging at all. It was just dead. At the time we were just getting ready to move back into to our house after being displaced by the fire and figuring out what was wrong with the DS was not high on the priority list. I knew I could not return it to Amazon as they have a 30 day return policy. We had not kept the box and I was not sure what the warranty was on the game system.

One evening in the beginning of June I went on Nintendo's website and started the product trouble shooter. After the website could not recognize the serial number from Tilly's DS (turns out when you buy a product online the serial number is not reported with the purchase, unlike when you buy a product at Walmart and the number is registered as it is scanned) the trouble shooting ended with a phone number to call. As I dialed I was thinking "oh great, I will be on hold forever and then end up talking to someone who barely speaks English..." Nothing peeves me more than bad customer service.

But surprisingly I was about to be impressed with Nintendo's customer service. I was directed by a short automated answer system to a real live human being within a minute of placing my call. She was nice and helpful and American. She ran me through a couple of simple, quick tests - like plugging it in and asking which lights came on. After about 2 minutes she told me that she was emailing me a pre-paid Fed Ex label and asked me if I could provide a box to ship it to Nintendo's service center. She gave me a service tracking number and told me I would be able to track the progress of the repair. It took 13 days from phone call to receiving the DS back. That is pretty darn good considering it took me a couple days to mail it and it had sent to California and back.

The DS works perfectly again. And my year long warranty started over from the time it was repaired. Now that is customer service that keeps customers! Even though I had a problem with the product I am still raving over the manufacturer! I am officially a Nintendo Fan.

I'm Bored...Idea #2

On Saturday evening after a day in the sun, soccer try outs, grilling steaks for dinner and bike riding...Tilly came to me saying..."I'm Bored."

So we decided to make salt dough. I had not done this for years but it is super easy, made from stuff you usually have in your cupboard (although I did have to run down and borrow some salt from Kristi because we were short) and kept us busy for hours.

1 cup salt

1 cup water

3 cups flour

2 tsp oil

And presto...instant entertainment. Hands are busy, creativity is cookin', a quiet time for great conversation, a cheap and easy way to mix up some mother daughter memories.

We are planning on painting our creations the next time she is bored.

If You're Bored...Idea #1

Our summer days and nights have been packed full of recitals, ball games and sleepovers and such. All through the spring and the first weeks of summer vacation we have been running at a crazy pace. But now that are between baseball and soccer seasons our pace is slower and I find my kids saying "I'm Bored...".
I actually think my kids are pretty good at entertaining themselves. They have great imaginations and still find many adventures to get caught up in. We live in a neighborhood full of kids and they are independent enough this summer to ride their bikes to their friends houses and play in backyards and at the park or the school playground. Yet still, with all the hours of free time they have on their hands...I hear from time to time..."I am bored..."
If you are finding yourself in a similar situation here is an idea...

Go to Bonneville Mill in Bristol.

We took a picnic up to Bonneville County Park on Friday with our cousins, The Galls and The Millers (who are visiting from Nevada). The kids had a wonderful time...and so did the adults. Steve scheduled a private tour of the mill by calling the Elkhart County Parks Department. The cost was $1.00 per person. We had a group of 12. The tour of the historic mill that grinds corn, wheat, rye and buckwheat was interesting and kept moving at a good pace. The tour included many nuggets of education not only about history, but of gears and pulleys, machinery, agriculture and even nutrition. There were hands on activities and they turned the mill on so we could see one of the original giant stones grinding corn.


The park is a beautiful place with a look out tower to climb, a stream to wade in and plenty of areas for a shady picnic. This county park is located in the heart of Elkhart County. The park is open everyday from May - October from 10am - 5pm.

If you are in Northern Indiana this is a great close by, get away for the day.

Crazy Day

This Saturday looks like it will be quite the crazy day for us and I am wondering how I am going to be everywhere I need to be...

8am - Little Paws Playground Work Day - re-sealing and making repairs to our community built playground to keep it safe for our community.

9:30 am - Cooper needs to be at the park to warm up for his 10:30 baseball game.

Noon - Cooper has a double Header - he will be playing back to back games to make up for a rained out game earlier in the season.

2:00 pm - Tilly's travel soccer team, the Pumas, have their Tourney this weekend at the Jr Irish fields up by the airport in South Bend. Her first game is at 2:45 pm.

5:15 pm - If they win the first game - which they surely will - they advance to play again.

7:00pm - Tilly's dance recital begins in Warsaw. Her dance is not until the second half of the show and it takes an hour and 10 minutes to drive from the Jr Irish fields to Warsaw High School, so we figure that we can let her play for a good part of the game and still make it before intermission. Her team is already down one player for the second game - another girl who is in the dance recital - so they will need Tilly to be able to sub out.

I try not to let Tilly and Cooper's schedule's get to crazy by limiting how many activities they participate in at the same time...but somehow things all boiled down to this week. Everyday we have had running to do. In a couple weeks things will slow down. At least until Kiwanis soccer starts in July.