The girls slept in my old room. Still the original furniture from something like 42 years ago!
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Anniversary Trip
Ty and I made it to (gulp) 17 years! We took a trip to Columbus and dropped off the girls with the grandparents. We then spent the weekend shopping, catching a movie (our first and only "adult" film of 2007) and went to the Ocean Club and Bon Vie for dinner. We met Kevin and Julie the first night and saw "The Kingdom".
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Busy!
I haven't been posting because I've been extremely busy since getting back from Disney. It's not all work though. I put together a movie of the trip and even got it burned to DVD to send to the technologically challenged in-laws.
If you'd like to see the movie, it's at the new website I just launched:
http://www.brianandtywana.com
If you'd like to see the movie, it's at the new website I just launched:
http://www.brianandtywana.com
Monday, September 17, 2007
Our Florence Nightingale
We were at Epcot wrappping up our last day at Disney. The plan was to hit the few things we had missed during our 1/2 day there on Thursday and to revisit a few highlights (like Space Mission and Test Track). As we were just walking in, I asked the girls and Ty to pose in front of the dome at Epcot. As I was taking their picture, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find a little Disney employee asking if I wanted her to take the picture with me in it. This was one of the very nice things about Disney. Not only the employees volunteered to take pictures with our digital camera, other guests would volunteer as well. So, for this vacation, you’ll actually see some shots with me in them (Ty also took a few). Back to my story, Florence the Disney Employee, after taking the picture asked where we were headed. We said to The Land to check out Soarin’. We had missed Soarin’ (and The Land) on our first pass through and wanted to catch it before dinner. She asked if we had checked out the wait. I was a little taken aback because the park was pretty empty and we hadn’t waited any time for anything on Thursday. She took us a few steps over to the board where the wait times were posted. 45 minutes for Soarin’. We hadn’t waited 45 minutes for anything in the 4 days we had already spent at the parks. She said “Do you want me to take you to the ride with no wait?” My thinking was that she was going to steer us to another attraction that we could get on my more quickly. But, she then said that she was with the Year of Million Dreams team and that she was adopting our family to make our dream of getting on Soarin’ come true.
As Florence led us to the ride, she told us about how long she had worked for Disney and that she was actually a college math teacher who took this as her “fun job”. She alternated between handing out gifts, handing out Dream Passes (a group of six Fast Passes for the most popular attractions, randomly handed out during the day (we had gotten some on Star Wars the day before at MGM)) and handing out this special treat. She led us to The Land, gave us a walking tour on the way there, telling us the story of the handmade inlaid art work done by a guy and his daughter with over 155,000 pieces each (the two walls were identical except for one green stone, he added to commemorate his daughter’s birthday). Florence had been searching for years to find that one stone. As we walked up to Soarin’, I felt like a VIP. Florence walked up to the guy accepting Fast Passes and told him she needed five. He handed her five and we walked through, right past a 45 minute line and up to what Bob Euchre would call (and a line I had been repeating all week “The Front Row!”. Florence asked the girls what each of their favorite Disney characters were and asked if they had gotten into pin trading. They had not.
Kayla was a little nervous about the ride as she is afraid of heights. The ride is a simulated hang gliding experience where you are in a row with about 8 people and are raised up in the air and thrust into a screen that surrounds you on all sides, above and underneath. You really get the true sensation of flying as when you look anywhere in about 180 degrees peripherally and 360 vertically, you see hang gliding scenes taken from the California sky. When you fly over the orange groves, you smell oranges, when you fly over the trees, you smell the forest, etc. It was truly an amazing experience. I comforted Kayla by having her try to get out of the seat before we took off (so she could see it was impossible to fall). While we were flying, she because a little overwhelmed, so I had her look to her left to see the people beside us to get a little perspective and close her eyes when it became overwhelming. She did great. I was so proud of her!
After the ride, Florence gave each of the girls a pin. Donald Duck for Shayna and Minnie Mouse for Kayla. Then, we thanked her and she was off to do her next good deed. As she left I thought of a few things. Was this a life changing experience (aren’t they all)? If I had not stopped the girls and Ty (who were several feet ahead of me) and directed them back to take the picture in that spot, we would not have met Florence. Had we not met Florence, we would not have gotten the opportunity to walk right up onto one of the two most popular attractions at Epcot (unbeknownst to us at the time though). I We would have headed home never having experienced what was an amazing experience for all of us. As a Black man, in a White world, there’s always that little feeling in the back of your mind of how White people really perceive of you. When a 60 year old White lady who can adopt any family she chooses, chooses our family, and not only takes us to the ride, does it with us, talks to us before and afterwards and shows genuine caring and concern for us, it reinforces my faith in people. It was one of those little magical moments at Disney that I’ll always remember.
As Florence led us to the ride, she told us about how long she had worked for Disney and that she was actually a college math teacher who took this as her “fun job”. She alternated between handing out gifts, handing out Dream Passes (a group of six Fast Passes for the most popular attractions, randomly handed out during the day (we had gotten some on Star Wars the day before at MGM)) and handing out this special treat. She led us to The Land, gave us a walking tour on the way there, telling us the story of the handmade inlaid art work done by a guy and his daughter with over 155,000 pieces each (the two walls were identical except for one green stone, he added to commemorate his daughter’s birthday). Florence had been searching for years to find that one stone. As we walked up to Soarin’, I felt like a VIP. Florence walked up to the guy accepting Fast Passes and told him she needed five. He handed her five and we walked through, right past a 45 minute line and up to what Bob Euchre would call (and a line I had been repeating all week “The Front Row!”. Florence asked the girls what each of their favorite Disney characters were and asked if they had gotten into pin trading. They had not.
Kayla was a little nervous about the ride as she is afraid of heights. The ride is a simulated hang gliding experience where you are in a row with about 8 people and are raised up in the air and thrust into a screen that surrounds you on all sides, above and underneath. You really get the true sensation of flying as when you look anywhere in about 180 degrees peripherally and 360 vertically, you see hang gliding scenes taken from the California sky. When you fly over the orange groves, you smell oranges, when you fly over the trees, you smell the forest, etc. It was truly an amazing experience. I comforted Kayla by having her try to get out of the seat before we took off (so she could see it was impossible to fall). While we were flying, she because a little overwhelmed, so I had her look to her left to see the people beside us to get a little perspective and close her eyes when it became overwhelming. She did great. I was so proud of her!
After the ride, Florence gave each of the girls a pin. Donald Duck for Shayna and Minnie Mouse for Kayla. Then, we thanked her and she was off to do her next good deed. As she left I thought of a few things. Was this a life changing experience (aren’t they all)? If I had not stopped the girls and Ty (who were several feet ahead of me) and directed them back to take the picture in that spot, we would not have met Florence. Had we not met Florence, we would not have gotten the opportunity to walk right up onto one of the two most popular attractions at Epcot (unbeknownst to us at the time though). I We would have headed home never having experienced what was an amazing experience for all of us. As a Black man, in a White world, there’s always that little feeling in the back of your mind of how White people really perceive of you. When a 60 year old White lady who can adopt any family she chooses, chooses our family, and not only takes us to the ride, does it with us, talks to us before and afterwards and shows genuine caring and concern for us, it reinforces my faith in people. It was one of those little magical moments at Disney that I’ll always remember.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Disney Day 2- Animal Kingdom
Day Two at Disney World, we visited Animal Kingdom. The girls had a blast. Kayla and Shayna both love animals. Visiting brought back memories of a 6 year old Kayla at the zoo, giving us little known facts about every creature we encountered.
Animal Kingdom was not my favorite park. The rides were just OK. The biggest stand out was Expedition Everest, which we did twice at the park opening with no wait. The girls and Ty did Kali Rapids while I stayed dry. We loved the Harambe or Kilaminjaro Safari. But, overall, the park was not a whole lot different than visiting the Cincinnati Zoo.
Dinner tonight was at the Grand Floridian with Cinderella, Prince Charming and the rest of the Cinderella crew. The girls insisted on doing a character dinner even though we suspected they would not be into it. And, they were not. They only reluctantly asked for autographs and posed for pictures. They are old enough to realize these are just people dressed up. But, the dinner was good. Kayla, Shayna and I had prime rib (Kayla didn't like hers). The desserts were huge. Served family style, we had a plate of pastries and a huge slab of bread pudding. It was my first time actually having bread pudding (which sounds disgusting). But, I liked it.
If you haven't been there and seen this tree, check out the detail here:
Animal Kingdom was not my favorite park. The rides were just OK. The biggest stand out was Expedition Everest, which we did twice at the park opening with no wait. The girls and Ty did Kali Rapids while I stayed dry. We loved the Harambe or Kilaminjaro Safari. But, overall, the park was not a whole lot different than visiting the Cincinnati Zoo.
Dinner tonight was at the Grand Floridian with Cinderella, Prince Charming and the rest of the Cinderella crew. The girls insisted on doing a character dinner even though we suspected they would not be into it. And, they were not. They only reluctantly asked for autographs and posed for pictures. They are old enough to realize these are just people dressed up. But, the dinner was good. Kayla, Shayna and I had prime rib (Kayla didn't like hers). The desserts were huge. Served family style, we had a plate of pastries and a huge slab of bread pudding. It was my first time actually having bread pudding (which sounds disgusting). But, I liked it.
If you haven't been there and seen this tree, check out the detail here:
View the photo set here:
On The Way to Disney
Today, we rose bright and early and left for our five day trip to visit The Mouse In Orlando. Shayna and Kayla were both out of bed with no problems. Shayna was a bundle of nerves and energy. I waited until the last possible moment to pack (as always and ran out of time). We hustled out of the door at 6AM (in spite of getting up 20 minutes earlier than planned) and had to make an unscheduled stop to pick up a smaller container of contact lens solution. So, we rolled into the parking lot at the Dayton airport at nearly 7AM with our flight scheduled to depart at 8AM. Fortunately, the Dayton airport is a morgue at 7 o'clock on a Thursday morning and we breezed through security.
I learned first hand what a great job airport security is doing of keeping us all safe. They confiscated my toothpaste, less than half an ounce of face cleanser (in a one ounce bottle) and my shave gel (in less than a 2 ounce tube). I was told if I had a ziplock plastic bag with me (because doesn't everyone carry one of those?), I could take my stuff. Otherwise, I had to place it in my checked bag (at this point making its way past the maze of conveyor belts behind the airport) or relinquish it. Good-bye toothpaste, hello Orlando.
We had a direct flight that went without a hitch. We were in Orlando airport at just after 10AM, boarded Disney's Magical Express and were at our hotel (French Quarter at Port Orleans before noon. Amazing. Unfortunately, the room wasn't ready. So, we had to hang out for a while. We had lunch in the hotel and walked around while they prepared our room. Our bags had been magically transported from the airport to our room (we didn't even have to claim them in Orland0). We had our park passes in our hands. So, by 3:15, we we were headed out for Epcot.
The girls were so excited. They were almost giddy as we headed for Epcot, which was a short bus ride (less than 15 minutes). The park was almost empty. We were able to visit Mission Space, The Seas with Nemo, Journey Into Imagination and Test Track less than three hours. The girls absolutely loved Test Track and Mission Space (we did the beginner's trainig- Green Level). They wanted to immediately go back and do the advanced training. We had dinner at the Rose Crown Pub & Dining Room. Ty thought I would enjoy fish and chips. She's right. I would have. But, the fish was the worst cod I have ever had. I think it was underdone. It was actually kind of tough rather than flaky. But, we had more than enough food as Ty got a lambshank that had to be every bit of 12 ounces of meat. Kayla decided she wanted a children's meal (pizza) even though she was on the adult meal plan. With the app
etizers and desserts we each got as part of our meal plan (Ty and I), there was more than enough food. We did get out of there just in time for the fireworks and laser closing. It was amazing and with the VIP seats we had been comped, we had the best seats in the house. The girls were exhausted. We closed down the park, got back to the room before 10pm. But, they were so excited, they each got a second wind and we stayed up late talking about the day.
View the photo set here:
I learned first hand what a great job airport security is doing of keeping us all safe. They confiscated my toothpaste, less than half an ounce of face cleanser (in a one ounce bottle) and my shave gel (in less than a 2 ounce tube). I was told if I had a ziplock plastic bag with me (because doesn't everyone carry one of those?), I could take my stuff. Otherwise, I had to place it in my checked bag (at this point making its way past the maze of conveyor belts behind the airport) or relinquish it. Good-bye toothpaste, hello Orlando.
We had a direct flight that went without a hitch. We were in Orlando airport at just after 10AM, boarded Disney's Magical Express and were at our hotel (French Quarter at Port Orleans before noon. Amazing. Unfortunately, the room wasn't ready. So, we had to hang out for a while. We had lunch in the hotel and walked around while they prepared our room. Our bags had been magically transported from the airport to our room (we didn't even have to claim them in Orland0). We had our park passes in our hands. So, by 3:15, we we were headed out for Epcot.
The girls were so excited. They were almost giddy as we headed for Epcot, which was a short bus ride (less than 15 minutes). The park was almost empty. We were able to visit Mission Space, The Seas with Nemo, Journey Into Imagination and Test Track less than three hours. The girls absolutely loved Test Track and Mission Space (we did the beginner's trainig- Green Level). They wanted to immediately go back and do the advanced training. We had dinner at the Rose Crown Pub & Dining Room. Ty thought I would enjoy fish and chips. She's right. I would have. But, the fish was the worst cod I have ever had. I think it was underdone. It was actually kind of tough rather than flaky. But, we had more than enough food as Ty got a lambshank that had to be every bit of 12 ounces of meat. Kayla decided she wanted a children's meal (pizza) even though she was on the adult meal plan. With the app
etizers and desserts we each got as part of our meal plan (Ty and I), there was more than enough food. We did get out of there just in time for the fireworks and laser closing. It was amazing and with the VIP seats we had been comped, we had the best seats in the house. The girls were exhausted. We closed down the park, got back to the room before 10pm. But, they were so excited, they each got a second wind and we stayed up late talking about the day.View the photo set here:
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