Early Christmas

We had a wonderful weekend with our son Dave and his wife Emily. We went to their home and enjoyed a soak in their new hot tub, which they got just in time for our old age! It is so relaxing. My brother Pat and his wife Alice live only a few blocks away, and they came over to join us. One of these days, we will have one of those lovely spa tubs at our mountain home. The huge snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast on Friday missed our area by only a few miles. We got a trace of snow on the deck, but the rest was rain. But it was still pretty cold, and that tub felt great!

Emily and Dave are hosting her entire family for Christmas, and we will be joining them for Christmas Eve, but we decided to share our Christmas gifts with each other this weekend. These lovely Victorian-style patchwork ornaments were a gift from Emily, made by her mother. I love them!

I finished the satin pillow that I started a long time ago to give it to Emily for Christmas. The white satin is left over from their wedding quilt. I just quilted feathers and flowers all over, but added a border of mixed horizontal and vertical lines. It will go on the leather chaise lounge in their bedroom.

I was very surprised to receive my gift from my hubby while we were there...a Nintendo Wii! He said I had asked for it last Christmas, which I don't recall. I was just thinking how happy our grandkids will be that we have a Wii they can play with...when I opened the accompanying gift from Dave and Em, the Wii Fitness Plus. This has all kinds of games for balance, strength, flexibility, and aerobics. The four of us played Bowling Saturday night, which was lots of fun. When we got home, I fooled around with the program and tried some of the fitness exercises. When you start out, it measures your BMI and compares it to your age, and then you do a balance test. I did not catch on to how to perform the balance exercises. My Wii Fitness Age is 70! Since I am 59, I was not too happy about that! Charlie, who is 60, had a fitness age of 55. I will have to try that balance test again.

This is going to be a fun way to work out without using the same exercise videos I have gotten kind of sick of doing. I sampled the yoga (at one point called YOGO in the instruction manual), hula hoop, step aerobics, and strength exercises.

My five-year old grandson is an expert on his dad's Ipod, clicking away with his little thumbs on video games, and instinctively knowing what to do despite the inability to read the messages. He can even download new apps on his own. Maybe he can teach me to do some of these Wii exercises!

To end on a quilty note, here is my little three-year old granddaughter, Lily, at our house a couple weeks ago. Do you think I have a future quilter in the family?