Super Mario Galaxy

My kids have been obsessed with Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii for a while now. So much so that Joe tells anyone and everyone to call him Mario! If I say "Joe", he quickly says, "I'm Mario!" I got the game for the kids around Christmas time. It really is a very good game. Problem is- the kids cannot play it entirely by themselves. They can play the 'easier' parts but it gets harder and harder.

Mario Galaxy is a game where Mario tries to save princess Peach from Bowser. He goes through the universe and defeats enemies on all these different planets, collecting "power stars" from each. The power stars power a special 'space station' and once he has 60 stars he goes to the center of the universe to fight bowser. He fights bowser pretty much at the end of every galaxy discovered. Once he has beaten Bowser, Mario collects 60 more power stars. Once that is done and Mario has 120 power stars, he fight Bowser again. Then the game can be played with Luigi to collect all 120 stars again. That somehow will give Mario 121 stars total. The game is beat. YAY!

I should also add that the kids are so obsessed with Mario Galaxy that if they are not playing the game they want to watch it on Youtube! Mario- Mario- Mario!

So the kids and I have been playing this game for a couple of months now. We have 114 power stars. Only 6 more to go and we can play with Luigi. Sam is looking forward to that. Some of the stars were easy to get, some took lots of practice and others may have been pure luck. The last 6 are kinda hard ones. At least 2 are pretty hard- I have yet to pass them. Today Max, Joe and myself were playing the game. I went to go do something else and left Max and Joe playing. I could hear Max yelling at (I'm guessing) Joe. Nothing concerning- Max always yells! Later in the afternoon Joe and me turned on the Wii, started Mario Galaxy and I was shocked! I'm pretty sure Joe did this.... Every single character we play with (there are 8 slots) had been deleted!! All 114 power stars gone! We have to start the whole dang thing over!! I could not believe he did this. All those hours and hours of work to collect the stars are now gone. The bright side- at least we should be much better and faster on collecting all the stars -- again!


***EDITED to add*** I think Joe may have reformatted the whole Wii. When Sam went to play her game Petz- Dogs 2 everything was gone. Yeah, we were getting close the end of that one again (I think!). I get so tired of doing the same thing over and over again. I haven't looked at Wii Fit but I'm pretty sure it will also be all gone. However, last week Joe was nice enough to erase me Mii so I think that means all of my stuff was gone anyway! I even had a golden piggy bank- all gone, I'm sure. And if that is what happened, we will have to unlock all the games again.

Does anyone know a way to back up the Wii???

edited again to add-- I realize I have some of the above info wrong (like the # of power stars at the end, blah, blah..) but you get the idea!

Home from Padre

We had a great time in South Padre Island! The drive was long but wasn't too bad. The weather was great the whole time. A little windy at times. We were there during the official Spring Break week. There were tons of college students everywhere. However they all left over the weekend and we left on Tuesday. So Monday all the crowds were gone. The beach was nice. The water was a little cold but the kids didn't notice! Lots of digging in the sand, running from the waves and just having fun on the beach. We saw lots of Portuguese Man of Wars. All washed up on the beach in the sea weed. We saw one other jelly fish the last day. It was big, clear, round and had the clover mark in the center. It was more than likely dead but Pete put it back in the water for good karma!

I think I gained at least 5 pounds in one week. The food was good every place we went. Pete's parents are down there for the winter in their RV. We stayed with them. We only went out a few times the other times we ate at the RV.

We went to a nature trail and saw an alligator. There was a sign saying Danger: alligator zone or something. But we were pretty sure the sign was there to keep us on the wooden foot bridge (with railing). Nope- there really was an alligator in there. One guy that was walking (a regular there) said he usually sees a female that is 15 feet long there. We also went to a sea turtle rescue place. We saw turtles and left. We saw hermit crabs in 'cove' like areas. The kids thought they were pretty cool.

The drive home felt longer (of course!). We left at 5:30 am, and got home around 12:30 that night. An entire day in the car, with a few stops of course.

I took lots of pictures. However, my camera is still in the car. Once I get my pictures off the camera, I will post a few.

a mix of everything!

Well, I am behind in posting so here it is!

Let's see... Ike is doing great sleeping in his "big boy" bed. He generally cries for a few minutes and knocks on his door but that is short lived. I'm waiting for him to figure out how to open doors. Then the fun will really start! I do have the door knob covers. I should put one on before he figures his door out. They never seemed to work for my kids though. They always figured them out within a day. Maybe my kids are just too smart! haha!

Max is using his device at school at times. He doesn't really use it at home. But I generally know what he is trying to say so that is easier for him. He has used it to copy some sentences for homework at home but that is about it. I had his IEP Friday. That went fine. His speech goals are always so vague it's pathetic but as long as they are working on it that is what counts. He dropped PT his last year of Pre-K just because he no longer needed it. He is now in 1st. Now they are dropping OT for the same reason. He doesn't need it anymore. We can always add it back but really he doesn't need it. His OT has always said Max is a "rock star" and is impressed by his fine motor skills. Fine motor has always been a strong point for him. He gets speech every day for 20 minutes then resource (special ed) for an hour each day. We may up that to 90 minutes. Plus I think his resource teacher has him longer times a lot. I really like his resource teacher and Max generally loves her. The last few weeks he has not. She said it is breaking her heart. But she believes he is getting away with stuff with other people and she doesn't put up with that. She makes him work so he is not too happy about that. He'll get over it.

The kids have Spring break next week (this coming week), Really I guess it started Friday afternoon! Last minutes plans we have decided to go to South Padre island for a week. Not looking forward to the 1000 mile drive but the beach sounds good!

I think that is it for now. Everyone have a great week!