A Lot Like Christmas

Carina took Tyler shopping the other night. I inferred from her comments that they were going grocery shopping. When they returned, Tyler burst into the house and exclaimed “Come help with this Christmas present!” I assumed she was being silly, and I dutifully went out to help unload the groceries.

As I stepped outside, though, I saw Carina unloading a home theater system from the trunk! We’d been discussing such an item as a shared gift to one another, but I was quite surprised to see that she had splurged for it. We both laughed as I told her what Tyler had said. “She was supposed to get you to go into the kitchen!” Carina giggled.

Last night I purchased stands for the satellite speakers, and a 100’ spool of speaker wire (it’s amazing how quickly one can use one hundred feet of speaker wire!), and got the whole thing configured. Neither Carina nor I are audiophiles, so watching Lord of the Rings with surround sound and booming bass was a real treat for us! I’m really looking forward to watching some of my favorite DVDs to enjoy the audio experience anew.

This morning the kids are off from school, and I’m home with them. Tayler asked me to connect our Nintendo GameCube to the new system, to which I readily agreed. After a few moments of swapping cables, I fired it up and watched Tayler’s face light up with joy as the sound quality improved remarkably. She’s been playing Animal Crossing for a few minutes now, and she’s still giggling every time some deep sound causes the bass to rumble in the room. As an added bonus, the home theater system should hopefully minimize the number of remotes our family needs to juggle, which will certainly help when grandmas and grandpas watch the twins – A/V-fu is not a strong suit of either set of grandparents!

After lunch we’re off to go roller skating!