Popular photo

We've received several comments about the small photo we've used in the right panel called "Tasman's Blue Period". So by popular demand, here is a more full version of the photo. (I maxed out the saturation to get a nice contrast between the blues and the whites.)

California Adventure

We posted a month ago about our trip to Disneyland. The $66 entrance fee was pretty steep, but since we are Southern California residents, we qualified for the "2fer" deal that allowed up to come back to California Adventure within 30 days for free. So exactly 30 days after our Disneyland trip, we drove back to LA for a visit to Disneyland's red-headed stepchild.

Of course, I kid. California Adventure is pretty cool. It's not anywhere near as big as Disneyland, but that was good in our case. We didn't really have all day to spend there, and the six hours or so we did spend was enough to see most of the attractions we wanted to see.

We met up with my brother Nathan and his wife Jess who live in Long Beach. We entered the park around 11:00 and headed straight for the kiddie rides.

Here's the list of things we did with Tas over the course of the day:

• Flik's Flyers
• Francis' Ladybug Boogie
• Heimlich's Chew Chew Train
• Tuck and Roll's Drive 'Em Buggies
• Monster's Inc. Mike and Sulley to the Rescue!
• Turtle Talk with Crush
  
• Sun Wheel

A note about that last one. The Sun Wheel is a rather large ferris wheel, as you can see in this picture of the Paradise Pier area.
There are two kinds of gondolas: one is fixed to the frame and just goes around like normal; the other kind sits on rails and slides back and forth (somewhat jarringly) as the ferris wheel rotates. We opted for the more thrilling, swinging gondolas. Now, if you are keeping up with our adventures, you'll know that both at Disneyland and Legoland, Tasman has shown no signs of fear. Nevertheless, as soon as the gondola first started swinging, Tasman's face turned white, she grabbed a hold of my arm with a death grip, and then started to cry. We all reassured her that everything would be okay. She would calm down a little once the gondola mostly stopped swinging, but then she would cry again when it started back up. In one of the relatively calm moments, she declared, "It's making me a little nervous!"

Aside from the kiddie rides, we were able to swap Tassie among us and ride some "adult" rides:

• Soarin' Over California
• California Screamin'
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

Kirsti only joined us in riding the first of the above. She's not a big fan of the thrill rides. I thought they were all great; these three attractions alone justified the trip to the park.

We left around 4:30. Nathan and Jess were very kind to take Tas for the evening while Kirsti and I went to dinner with our friends Justin and Tarra who live in Norwalk. Thanks for the yummy Mexican! (Just to clarify: we ate yummy Mexican food, not a Mexican person.) Nathan and Jess even gave Tas a bath and put her in her jammies so that she could fall asleep in the car and not be as disturbed when we got home and put her straight to bed.

As always, here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

The first series was taken while Kirsti and Tas were waiting for me to wait in the ticket line. (It turns out I didn't need to wait in the line; the 2fer passes admitted us into the park directly.) Due to some kind of cosmic alignment, Tasman managed to take about ten spectacular pictures in a row. Here are some of them.

Jess and Tas in the bumper cars.

Nathan, Sean, and Tasman on Heimlich's Chew Chew Train. Note that the ride has not yet started moving. Tas must have loved this ride; she is still talking about it more than a week later. There's a part where the train passes through a giant piece of watermelon, and a little water sprays you. Tasman comments almost daily: "I ride the chew chew train and the watermelon sprays me."

Sportin' the shades.
(I dropped the 'g' as an homage to our trip: they seem quite fond of dropping the 'g' from the names of various rides. While Walt Disney's racist views are widely known, his fear of the letter 'g' is not common knowledge. By the way, does anyone know what the official grammatical term is for dropping a 'g' and replacing it with an apostrophe? I can't find the answer anywhere! One source called it a "clipped verb"—a fine name to be sure—but its usage was ad hoc and appears not to be in common currency.)

Sleepy girl on the way home.

Old school NES

Here are two awesome videos from YouTube. The first appeals to me as a former marching band nerd. (Unfortunately, it appears that it was filmed from the wrong side of the stadium, so everything is seen upside-down.) How many of the referenced video games can you name?

The second is a live reenactment of Super Mario Bros. Frickin' sweet!

The weekend with my family

My parents and my little brother came to town a few weeks ago. (I'm a little late in posting this since I've been really busy grading exams and working on my dissertation.) The ostensible reason for the visit was a piano recital I had for my piano students, although my parents are always happy to find an excuse to come see their granddaughter.

We spent the afternoon on Thursday at the Carlsbad Flower Fields. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera, so this photo from the web will have to suffice. The flower fields consist of huge rows of multiply-colored Giant Tecolote Ranunculus. Here's a close-up of
some of the flowers Kirsti bought:
We took a tractor ride around the fields and that was fun for Tasman. In addition to the rows of ranunculus, they also had award-winning rose displays (not so fun) and a sweet-pea maze (more fun). We finished off the day at the playground, where Tas went down several different slides over and over again. The girl loves her slides.

Thursday evening was the piano recital. My students did a great job and I was proud of all of them! I also played some Rachmaninoff. The picture below shows me at a spectacular concert grand piano at Greene Music's recital hall. Sitting beside me is my page-turner, Devin.

On Friday, my parents, Devin, Tasman, and I went to Legoland. (Kirsti had to work. Boo.) So much fun! Tasman's experience at Disneyland left her with a penchant for thrilling rides, apparently. Well, okay, none of the rides at Legoland are really all that scary, but we did go on a roller coaster that picked up quite a bit of speed on its initial descent, and a fair amount of torque in the turns. She just grinned, giggled, and said, "Wheeeeee!" throughout the whole ride.

At one point we walked through the water park area and my mom lamented the fact that we had not brought Tas's swimsuit. She tried to convince me that we should let her play in the water anyway, maybe toward the end of the day so that she could get wet and then we could just get in the car and go home. I resisted, and she finally conceded that maybe it wasn't going to work all that well. Near the water area, though, was a ride shaped like a pirate ship that rocked back and forth and spun around. Tas wanted to ride, so my dad and I took her. Devin and my mom abstained due to the spinning aspect. The line was a bit longer than some we stood in, although none of the lines were particularly long, seeing as this was a Thursday in a slow park season. So it took us maybe twenty to thirty minutes to get through the line and ride. At any rate, it was enough time for my mom to go to a gift shop and purchase Tasman a swimsuit and beach towel so that her dream of seeing Tasman play in the water could be fulfilled. In the end, I was glad she did. It was hilarious watching Tas play in the water with all the other little kids. She got a little nervous about going back in after Devin helped guide her to the spot where a bucket of water dropped every fifteen seconds or so. But in the end, she got over it and went back in anyway. After all the fun and excitement, we hit the gift shop. Tasman walked away with a stuffed Lego man (whom she called her "new friend") and a set of Duplo blocks that combined to form a stable with some horses and people and stuff. My dad came away with a baseball cap that he was forced to buy so that he didn't get a sunburn on the top of his head.

Saturday was a chill day. Nathan and Jess drove down from Long Beach with their new little Yorkshire Terrier puppy, aptly named Trogdor. I'll include two links here: this one is to Trogdor's blog—the Trog blog, one might say; and this one is to the source of the name Trogdor. Of course, I first became aware of the name Trogdor through the Guitar Hero 2 cover of the song from the afore-linked cartoon. (I love internet humor.) We all spent a lovely afternoon together, ate some yummy Panera Bread sandwiches, and delighted in Tassie's interaction with Trogdor. My parents and Devin flew out Saturday afternoon.

Here are some of our photos from Legoland. There are quite a few of them, and already this post is long. But we only live once, right?

The first batch is from Miniland USA, an incredible area of the park where famous landmarks are built out of Legos. Truly, it's spectacular.

The Las Vegas section was probably my favorite. If you have spent any time in Vegas at all, you'll appreciate the attention to detail present in the re-creation of the Strip:

This is an entire New York City skyline. Note the Freedom Tower at the left; this is what the building at the Ground Zero site will look like when completed.

The Statue of Liberty.

San Francisco, from Chinatown.

Am I the only one who gets the Full House theme song stuck in my head when I see this picture?

Lombard Street.

The Eiffel Tower. (La Tour Eiffel—that's for you, Lisa.)

The Sydney Opera House. They even have a little Lego guy cleaning the windows on the right.

The Taj Mahal.

An enormous elephant.

Sean and Tas on a boat ride. (Not the big, scary boat ride discussed in the post, naturally.)

Dad and Mom. Or Grandpa and Granna, as Tas knows them.

Uncle Devin with Tas. She was getting grumpy at this point in the day and she yelled at me whenever I tried to take a photo of her. So I had to trick her to look at me and take a quick photo. She yelled at me again right after I got the shot.

Devin, Tas, and Dad.

Me and Mom.

Mom and Tas on the jungle ride. You can see Dad in the car behind them.

Mom and Tas in the mouth of a Lego shark.

Here's the series of photos of Tas playing in the water:

YouTube embedded video experiment

I'm trying out something new. Other blogs I've seen have embedded YouTube videos, so I'm giving it a shot here on our humble blog.

For my first attempt, enjoy this audition from Bulgarian Idol. What, you say you've never heard the hit song "Ken Lee"? See for yourselves. Hi-freaking-larious!