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Was your living room about as messy as it could've possibly been Christmas morning too? We had wrapping paper and cardboard strewn everywhere, lots of it in the name of the cool gifts the boys got this year! Stephen and I made a fair bit of effort trying to find them the best tech gifts we could- good prices, quality, trends- all the details that go into making a larger purchase you want to really be happy with. So it goes for parents of teenagers specifically, eh? :)
I was excited for the chance to visit Best Buy and blog about accessories the boys would find for their new Christmas presents- we all love this store! Specifically, Keaton got a new tablet, Taron got an external battery pack and nicer headphones for his current tablet, Cooper got a less expensive tablet and Ryder got a Nintendo DS. When we got to Best Buy, they were each looking for things that they could use with them.
I took the time to check out Best Buy's trending page, which shows you really clearly what gadgets are currently trending on twitter. I wanted to see what was popular that we maybe didn't know about or was a good deal we could specifically look for. I actually hadn't known about this page before and really did think it was a cool resource! We like to think we're fairly "in the know" about what Taron and Keaton like and want, but still love the little things that help us be even cooler than we really are ;)
Best Buy has an amazing selection of headphones- Taron seemed drawn to them, maybe just to see if the ones he got were comparable. Keaton was torn between a speaker or headphones himself. They both really liked that they could actually try the headphones on- there were lots of models out of the boxes.
So here's the thing with the tablet we got for Cooper... the "less expensive" one. It really was less... in more ways that just the price! It ended up not even using Google Play and we were dumb enough not to have made sure of that detail. The only reason we opted to get him a tablet at all instead of something like Ryder's Nintendo DS was because he could download the games he likes on our phones for free that way (and our phones could be our own when we're traveling again- novel idea!).
He was so disappointed when we explained that we needed to send his crummy tablet back and look for something that would be better! Total bummer for such a little guy to basically have Christmas taken away again! So he loved looking at the tablets at Best Buy with us and actually getting to touch them to see how his replacement would indeed be better and worth the wait. The awesome tables at Best Buy where you can really touch and interact with the gadgets went a long, long way to heal the issue- I was so grateful!
Of course we had to check out the Skylanders- if the little boys know they are in a store, we have to at least peek to see if there's anything exciting in the mix. I felt like the Skylanders franchise seriously missed the boat not having their third wave of characters widely available for the Christmas season- it took some work on my part explaining to the boys why they wouldn't be part of Christmas... even after I'd stopped in and out of stores on the day of new truckoads over the course of three weeks- no fun. Anyhow... Best Buy is the only place we've ever found this cool over the door character organizer and they would love to own it!
We also searched specifically for games for Ryder- he has just one. I really liked that I found a good selection of value priced ones while we were looking at Best Buy.
Really, it struck me that Best Buy kinda has everything. If it's electronic or techy at all, I noticed it kinda seemed like we could find it here- the small appliance selection was much broader than I might have thought!
Probably our very favorite find of the night at Best Buy were these cool phone gear watches. I had told Stephen that I thought we should get Taron a cell phone for Christmas, but we decided it was best to still wait awhile. He really enjoyed figuring out how the watch and the phone worked together- the table where these were set up was amazing to play at! What will they think of next?!
Cooper was so proud when he spotted and remembered the batteries as we were in line to check out! Obviously, the store was pretty well cleared out of them! We'd picked up lots of AA's before Christmas but had forgotten anything larger- we needed both C and D size for Nerf guns and Hot Wheels tracks! These made it so we could go home and actually enjoy the track instead of just put it together. Batteries forever save the day!
In the end, the older boys chose these cool little speakers for the music on their tablets and helped Ryder choose a racing game for his Nintendo DS. Anything we could have walked away with would have been an awesome addition to their Christmas. More than anything we loved being able to see and really touch the tablet and phone options- next Christmas we are starting here!
