get out there!

Spring is my favorite season. It's finally warm enough to get outside. Sure, there's yard work to be done and cleaning and all that, but I'd rather go out and play with my nieces and nephews. While my sister pounds dust out of carpets and launders the drapes, I'm "babysitting" outside with my newest finds from the Things warehouse.

I bought three of these motorized bumper boats last year--one for each of the kids and one for me. It's pool float with a motor and steering wheel—it goes about two miles per hour. It's also super heavy duty. I've run mine into the side of the pool more times than I can count and it just bounces right off. The key to maximum fun is having two or more of them in the pool at once so you can run them into each other.

We have lots of new radio-controlled Things for outdoor fun, too. Check out this radio controlled hopper helicopter. Its twin rotors spin in opposite directions to create a very smooth flying helicopter. It has a weighted fly-bar for a stable, ready-to-fly chopper. Even if you don't have experience flying RC helicopters, this one is pretty easy to operate. It's probably the best one I've seen for this price. If radio controlled copters are too much for you, you can try this Stunt Copter. It's a cord-launched copter so it doesn't need batteries or controllers. You just launch it and wait for it to return to you like a boomerang.

If flying Things isn't your thing, how about some water toys? Our radio controlled hydrostorm boat flies across the water. It can do up to 20 mph! It's pretty impressive to watch. It has twin propellers and it runs off a rechargeable batteries. The controller is really easy to use and has a range or up to 150 ft. Now this Thing is completely ingenious. It's a radio controlled fishing boat. I'm not kidding, you can actually catch fish with this Thing. It even includes tackle! You just attach the tackle to the boat and set it on the water. Just watch the bobber--when it dips, steer the boat to shore see what you caught. It will handle a fish up to two pounds. It even has prop guards to help prevent tangles in line or weeds. I love any Thing that makes fishing fun or easier.

Speaking of fishing, I had to have the pen fishing rod. It looks like a fountain pen, but it's actually a working fishing rod. It blows people away. Wait until you see the looks on people's faces when you start fishing with your pen. I'll admit, I've never caught a fish with it, but that's probably not the pen's fault. I have several expensive fishing rods and I never catch anything. At least the pen makes it a little more fun to feed my bait to the fish.

For Things that are just plain fun to play with, we have this geyser tube and giant bubble kit. You've probably seen the dozens of demonstrations of the soda geyser on the Internet. It's a remarkable Thing that works with Mentos candy and diet soda. You just put 6-8 Mentos in the plastic tube, place the tube over the mouth of a two-liter soda bottle, pull the trigger and run. To make huge bubbles that last long enough to float up the sides of buildings, use this special bubble kit. With the specially designed bubble maker and the “secret bubble recipe,” (soap and water) you can make bubbles within bubbles, donut bubbles and chains of bubbles.It's time for some fun in the sun. Grab your favorite Things and get out there!

Until next week,
Bobby