Category: Family

South Africa

William Leave a comment

My parents recently took  a trip to South Africa. Below are some comments my mom made about the trip. I was hoping to link to some photos of the trip, but my father hasn’t bothered to upload them yet. I am going to stay on him. Maybe we will see some soon.

We [Bill and Betty] returned from South Africa last week [now three weeks ago] on Monday, October 27th from an eleven day trip.  It was a wonderful trip.  We went with a delegation representing Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.  We visited Johannesburg, Sun City (which is a resort city), and Cape Town.  Our trip included a visit to an elementary school and an orphanage.  The group took school supplies to the school and made monetary contributions to the orphanage.  This was the second trip to South Africa for Bill and me.  We were happy to see the growth there since our visit in 2001.  New buildings were going up everywhere and there were lots of street expansions.  Bill had a chance to play golf in Cape Town.  We visited a winery and brought back two bottles of wine.   We visited four museums that explained different aspects of struggles and endurance by the people before and during apartheid.  We saw lively and colorful entertainment and enjoyed several authentic South African meals.  We visited Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent most of his prison time.  We went to the top of Table Mountain and  enjoyed the spectacular view.Our tour included a botanical garden, and the group even took a safari.  We celebrated our 36th wedding anniversary in South Africa.  It was a day we will always remember, it ended with a candle light steak dinner with our group.  There were champagne toasts and  dancing.  Some members of our group arranged for the pianist to play two love songs just for us.  People in South Africa were very excited about our then up coming election.  I know they celebrated on November 4th with the rest of the world.

Hanging out with the fam in Cleveland

Kyllan Leave a comment

This past weekend, Kim, Drew and I went to Cleveland to visit the fam, and more importanly… see the new kitchen!! It was sad we had not seen it in person yet, so we finally got to bask in the wonderfulness of it. Drew had such a good time that he wanted to “stay in Cleveland until Christmas.” I think he enjoyed being around his cousins. We were only there a short time, but we got to see almost all of the fam, except my aunt and uncle who were out of town. We also got to meet the newest addition to the family, Tristan (my cousin Terrance’s youngest daughter), who is soooo adorable. We got the chance to see my mom’s new school building as well, which is MUCH improved from the previous building. Being in the cold weather reminded me why I like Texas so much, but it was nice to see the fall foliage.  To see all the pictures from the weekend, click here to visit my Flickr page.

October 27th

William

Today would have been my sister’s 31st birthday. Here is a link to a page on which I discuss what is being done to preserve her memory. I’ve already shared several photos of my family form when I was a young child, so below i have included a family photo form 1996. The picture was taken at the Marriott in Memphis at the banquet honoring my grandmother’s 80th birthday. Below that is a photo of my parents with Mrs. Fontenot and Sarah at the scholarship dinner were the Caroline A. Cody memorial scholarship is awarded. Mrs. Fontenot gave a generous donation to the scholarship fund. Sarah, a close friend of the family, was this years recipient… I turned off comments for this post. If you would like to share any memories or thoughts feel free to contact me or my parents.

We would also like to say happy 1st anniversary to our Friends Maya and Jamaal! Can you believe a year has already passed?

Almost 4

Kyllan Leave a comment

Our nephew, Drew, will turn 4 years old on September 3rd.  So while over my sister’s house this weekend, I had the following conversation with Drew:

Aunt KyKy: Drew, what do you want Uncle William and I to get you for you birthday?

Drew: Ummm….You can just get me a card.  My daddy is going to buy the toys.

Aunt KyKy: Are you sure?  I think Uncle William really wanted to find a toy you would like?

Drew: No, you can just buy a card and put it in the mail so I can have it on my birthday.  My daddy will buy all the toys for me.

Wow… who knew an almost 4 year old would tell someone not to buy him a toy.

We’ll see what happens.

Mile High Fun

Kyllan Leave a comment

William and I had a great time in Denver this past weekend. Typically we are simply excited to be in each others presence, so we don’t really take time to “plan” anything for our visits. However, this time William planned some “touristy” things for us to do. We have previously been to the Capitol Building, Mile High Stadium, and other sites in and around downtown, but we crossed a few more sites off our list.

After breakfast on Saturday at what has quickly become one of our favorite breakfast places, The Delectable Egg, we began our tour of the Denver Art Museum. With two buildings with several levels of exhibits, we became very overwhelmed at the amount of art on display, but did not really find anything that made us extremely fascinated. I guess we have not fully developed our appreciation for art. After the museum, we spent some time exploring the 16th Street Mall. We had several lunch options on the mall, but somehow managed to wander several blocks off the mall to a cute little pizza joint. After the long walk to get there, we were wondering if it would be worth it, but we both enjoyed our selection of the “Brooklyn”, which we quickly devoured. After making the walk back to the mall, which of course seemed much shorter this time, we treated ourselves to gelato (Italian ice cream). Yes, we broke our “healthy eating” rule, but hey… the gelato has less calories and less fat than regular ice cream 🙂 We concluded the day with William’s favorite combo…dinner and a movie. William was surprised to learn that I was interested in seeing Get Smart, and I think we were both surprised that we both enjoyed the movie and laughed throughout the film despite the lukewarm reviews.

To conclude the weekend, we enjoyed Sunday brunch at Dazzle. I thought the brunch was very good and the live jazz band was a nice touch. Please do not ask William how the brownie covered in fudge that I brought to the table for us to share became Kyllan’s dessert. It had chocolate chips in it! Brownie without nuts, fudge topping, chocoloate chips….enough said.

William took pictures, of course, so I am sure he will post those soon.

Oh… and I have to report that after multiple visits to the Apple store only to come out empty handed and disgruntled, William is now the very proud owner of an iPhone, which he loves. I am sure he will post about that later this week.

Reunion Pictures

William 8 Comments

Pictures from the reunion are up. I warn you, there are over 700. I included pictures taken by my Uncle Sam and my father. My Uncle Same would like me to add the disclaimer that his pictures tend to focus on his daughters and granddaughters. With so many photos, I didn’t take time to add an individual title and description to every photo. Enjoy.