Category: Entertainment

Disney

William 1 Comment

The family took an impromptu trip to Disney World over Memorial Day weekend while we were in Jacksonville visiting my parents. In retrospect, taking a toddler and infant to Disney World on what may be their busiest day of the year may not have been the best timing. On top of that, it was also “Rock your Disney Side” day, one of the rare events where the Magic Kingdom is open 24-hours and people can wear costumes into the park, making it a even more popular weekend than usual.

Given all of that, we still had a great time! We stayed at Disney’s Art of Animation Studios, which worked great for us. We had a Finding Nemo themed family suite, which gave us plenty of room and Laurel absolutely loved! The entire place featured art and imagery from Finding Nemo, the Lion King, Cars, and the Little Mermaid. If I had to guess, I would say Ariel better watch out. I think Anna and Elsa may be coming for her wing at the resort during the next renovation. Speaking of Anna and Elsa, we didn’t get to meet them at the park. Even when we woke up early and went straight there, the line was 420 minutes long. It was the only attraction that ran out of fast-passes ahead of time. Turns out Laurel was happy enough seeing the characters in the parades. We did, however, wait in line to see Tinkerbell, but that didn’t turn out like we expected. If you didn’t already know, Laurel is a huge Tinkerbell fan. She has seen all the movies… at least 20 times each. She would not stop talking about how excited she was and what she was going to talk to Tinkerbell about the entire time we were in line. As soon as she went up to meet her she claimed up. After an hour in line, she made a duck face in every photo. EVERY PHOTO!

I think Kyllan’s favorite part of the trip was watching all of the parades. Laurel’s was definitely Finding Nemo the Musical, especially after staying in a Nemo room. Kyllan and I were both shocked by how much Elliott enjoyed Its a Small World. In fact, he still perks up whenever he hears the music. My favorite was Kilimanjaro Safari in the Animal Kingdom.  I think our time at the Animal Kingdom really made the trip. The crowds, the heat, and the waits at the Magic Kingdom were  just too much for the kids to bare and the Safari and Finding Nemo the Musical were the two best attractions in the entire park.   We have tons of pictures from the trip. Here are a few below.

 

The Castle
Tinkerbell
Elliott Having Fun!
Sleeping with Nemo!
A Few Tears Along the Way

 

Elliott’s 1st Birthday

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Yes, Elliott’s birthday was almost a month ago. I know. We’re trying, but we are exhausted.

For Elliott’s actually birthday we took the kids to the Fort Worth Zoo. (We went to the Dallas Zoo for Laurel’s 2nd birthday.) We had a great time and took loads of pictures. Laurel loved seeing all of the animals and I pretty sure she thought the trip was for her. Elliott simply enjoyed being outside and seeing new things. Kyllan and I were happy to have two well behaved kids! When we returned from the zoo Elliott opened his presents and we had birthday cupcakes. It’s been rough on her. My mom’s birthday, my dad’s birthday, my birthday, Kyllan’s birthday and then Elliott’s birth just come one after the other and she cannot figure why hers isn’t here yet.

You can find all the photos from the day here.

 

Birthday Boy!

 

Opening Presents!

 

The Cody Family

 

The Cody Girls

Dancing

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Laurel has always loved music and moving along with the beat, but recently she has become more and more animated while dancing. It doesn’t matter if it is popular song, a commercial jingle, or music from a tv show. If it plays for more than a few seconds she jumps up a starts dancing. I didn’t catch her signature one legged dance move, but I’ll try again later. Maybe I can get Kyllan and her doing it at the same time…

Sorry about the video quality. I made a dash for the camera and started filming so fast I didn’t focus.

Man Post

William 2 Comments

Every now and then a friend will tell me that the blog has gotten a little too “girly.” When that happens, it’s time for a Man Post. I’ll keep this one limited to gadgets and sports.

Gadgets:

Sometimes photos uploaded to flickr don’t get mentioned in a post. If you happened to check my flickr account 2 weeks ago, you saw my birthday present from my parents.

Unboxing
Unboxing

My official review? I love it. Don’t get me wrong, nobody needs an iPad and Apple is an evil corporation, but I can’t put it down. It was perfect for traveling this weekend. Read an eBook on the plane. Looked over some news stories while in the hotel room. Picked out a restaurant for dinner. Checked in for the flight home. Reviewed some material for my course. And, the monthly data plan was less than it would have cost to access wifi in the room for the weekend. By far my favorite app is flipboard. I am a sucker for news aggregation mixed with social networking. That, and any app that uses airplay, allowing me to stream content from the iPad to the tv with the appleTV, which was a birthday present from Kyllan. (Seriously, apple is evil. But, Just like Sony, I buy their stuff.)

 

The only real question is, was the gift really for me, or was it for baby girl Cody? Either way, she’ll be getting an iPad3 because of this.

Sports:

I can’t believe that I am going to miss the 1st round of the draft on Thursday while teaching and in the air flying to Jacksonville for rounds 2 &3! I’m not even going to be able to watch all the pre-draft hype. How am I supposed to feel like this could be the Jaguars year if I don’t watch the draft? How am supposed to laugh at Kyllan when the Cowboys make some absurd trade to select a player that will be arrested before the season starts? By the time I get home Thursday, the only news story will be about how Cam Newton did or did not go first overall! By the time we make it to Jacksonville, the only story will be on “how did _______ fall all the way to the 4th round? Could ________ be the next Tom Brady?” At least I can watch Jaguars news coverage while in Jacksonville and won’t have to suffer through non-stop Cowboys coverage in Dallas.

 

 

Commercials

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Kyllan and I enjoyed the Super Bowl. Of course we didn’t have very much invested since neither of our teams were playing, but it was a good game. As always, there were good commercials. Our favorites were Doritos: The Best Part, Volkswagen: The Force and Bridgestone: Reply All. What were your favorites?

(Turn off the autoplay, or ads will just keep playing)

More Hawaii Pictures

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During the cruise, our ship spent two days docked at Nawiliwili on the island of Maui. Kyllan and I spent the first day on an amazing snorkeling trip. Swimming with and seeing the tropical fish and sea turtles was like something out of a movie. It was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Unfortunately we didn’t have an underwater camera, so we only have a few shots on the boat. We spent day 2 of Maui at Wailea Beach. Mainly we just relaxed and enjoyed our surroundings. We did do some boogie boarding, but the waves weren’t big enough to try surfing. Later, Kyllan and I looked around the Grand Wailea, where we now plan to stay when we next visit Hawaii.

On the Big Island we docked at both Kona and Hilo. While at Kona we visited Volcanoes National Park. It was really interesting to gain an understanding of how the islands were formed and I can now tell you all about lava tubes and calderas, neither of which did I know were things before this trip.  In Hilo we spent the day at beach in Anaehoomalu Bay. We did some more snorkeling and water sports, but ultimately decided to stick with the whole relaxing and doing nothing thing. And, of course, that evening Kyllan and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary.

I uploaded photos from Maui, Kona and Hilo to Flickr.

Wailea Beach
Anaehoomalu Bay
3rd Anniversary

Fall TV

William 4 Comments

We received a request to discuss the shows we will be watching on TV this fall. There aren’t too may returning shows that I’m all that excited about. I’m concerned that several shows that I enjoyed last year may have jumped the shark. The Mentalist and Modern Family, however, are two that stand out as  returning favorites. Modern Family may be the only show that Kyllan and I both genuinely like and always watch together.  (I will usually watch Grey’s Anatomy with her and there are a few shows I watch that Kyllan describes “not as bad as the others” that she will watch with me.)

Of the new fall shows, I think I will check out Undercovers and Detroit 187. I wasn’t all that interested in Detroit 187 until I saw that it was being compared to the quasi-canceled Southlands, which I loved. I will probably also check out Law & Order: Los Angles. I feel obligated to watch Hawaii Five-0 remake after our trip to Hawaii. Everywhere we went tour guides were pointing out a location where the show recently shot or will be shooting. Kyllan, who is a big fan of Top Chef, has started watching Top Chef: Just Desserts.

TV guide has list of several new shows with brief descriptions here

A site with trailers for most of the new shows can be found here. Click the “view all” link at the bottom so you don’t have to scroll through each individually.