Comparison Friday 2.23 – Nothing new to report

It’s raining, so we are staying inside… and playing with the laundry basket.  Happy Friday, everyone.

Comparison Monday 2.22 – Not impressed with the Luxor

We’re back from Las Vegas, and we were happy to leave the stench and general whore-ishness behind.  We stayed at the Luxor, which proved to be least among the Hotels on the strip.  Christina was not impressed:

"I am not impressed."

What we did enjoy, however, was the water show at the Bellagio (watched from the gridlock on the strip):

"One... singular sensation, every little step she takes..."

The lions at MGM Grand:

The M&M’s store:

The Coca-Cola store:

FAO Schwarz at Caesar’s:

And the Wynn Buffet.  Ate ourselves silly.

And we did a little dancin’:

An old chinese Pau Pau walked by and said, “he’s going to fall over!” in Cantonese.  Emmett was more than willing to oblige:

Good to be back in the nice clean LA air.

Comparison Year of the Ox

Emmett had received a Chinese New Year outfit a while ago that was far too large for him at the time.  Now that he’s bigger, we thought we’d give it a try.  I think you’ll agree, the results are quite spectacular:

Getting him to sit still for any given Comparison Friday is tough, but now that he’s wearing silk, it’s doubly difficult.

Sun Neen Fai Lok, everyone!

Comparison Friday 2.21 – I once was pink, but now no longer.

This week’s shirt, given to Emmett by his Yee-Pau (Choy, whom we love and admire deeply), recently fell victim to our ever dangerous pink laundry:

This photo was taken on November 8.  And we’re still sorting through pink laundry.  The rug in the foreground is the culprit.  Emmett’s socks, Daddy’s socks, dishtowels, t-shirts, underwear, everything. Pink.

I had tried everything with limited success.  I tried a light bleach solution, I tried soaking it in hot water, etc.  The final straw was when two of Emmett’s NEW t-shirts had gotten pinked.  Frantically, I scoured the internet to find a solution.  I found this:

I set out to find this product at our local Rite-Aid.  Nothing.  Determined, I biked from Rite-Aid to CVS down the street.  Still nothing.  This was becoming more of a personal vendetta than a simple experiment.  My last stop was Ralph’s, and I found this instead:

Close enough.  I biked home and tried it out that night.  Now, I don’t believe in magic, but…

This was pretty magical.  As you can see, the shirt is a pristine white.  Bullet dodged.  Happy Friday.

Comparison Friday 2.20 – Buy One Get One Free

Yesterday, Emmett and I spent most of the day at… you guessed it… Disneyland.  Seeing as how we didn’t go on any rides last time, this time we tried to go on as many rides as possible.

This is the worst ride of them all.

Heimlich's Chew Chew Train

Emmett looking around at all the large food. This ride was literally about a minute long.

Flik's Flyers

This ride lifts you up in the air and spins you around.

Then we made our obligatory stop at the water fountains, where Emmett was dry for all of 5 seconds.

He took it upon himself to clean up all of the leaves from the area

After taking off his wet shoes and socks, we headed over to Disneyland.

Because most of the attractions are under construction, they seem to be relying more heavily upon the street performers and characters.

This year's theme is "What will you celebrate?"

Then we went over to the Jungle Cruise. It was a good thing we went so early, because every time we passed by it later, the line was at least 30 minutes long. We waited about 10 minutes.

On the boat. Our pilot was very funny.

Then we headed over to Carnation Plaza to have some lunch.

... where Emmett proceeded to mess up the changing table in the family restroom.

Teacups!

I think Emmett was mostly confused when we were in the cup... that is, when he wasn't eating raisins.

Then we went to go fight the evil Emperor Zurg

The ride shut down twice in the middle, but I managed a decent score. At least you can see Emmet's head this time. I need to find out where this camera is.

Then we went on Pirates. This was the first time that I'd been able to go on Pirates since the earthquake experience.

Emmett seemed slightly amused.

Davey Jones!

At this point, Daddy needed to get off of his feet, so we took the grand circle tour of Disneyland on the train.

Emmett sat next to me. Note that the shoes had dried out by this time.

We match!

Then we went on King Arthur's Carousel. He liked it so much we went twice (after the first time, he made the sign for "more"/"again")

This picture isn't the clearest, but the expression is priceless.

Then we went on Dumbo

They changed the seatbelts! No more belt loops, there's a latch closure now.

He was much more interested in controlling the up and down this time

After a short nap (and a couple laps around the park) we went on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I had no idea this ride even existed.

It's basically a story book ride with the maquette figures inside.

We decided to go over to California Adventure for dinner (it's less crowded), but we stopped at Tarzan's Treehouse first.

The view from atop the tree.

There's a play area at the end of the treehouse path where you can play the pots and pans. Emmett is barely tall enough to reach the bottom pans.

Before dinner, we went on Mike and Sully to the Rescue!

It's basically a cab ride through the Monster's Inc. story. It was super empty in there, so much so that we got our own cab.

We stopped at Harryhausen's for sushi.

We sat and watched a weird show about being "drawn to the magic"

Then we ate dinner over at the Pacific Wharf (Emmett chose to eat standing up)

We got mommy a present (which we're sure she'll love)

Then we watched the Pixar Play Parade (again.  I won’t put any more pictures of it).  This time, one of the Monster’s Inc. characters came up to Emmett and stuck out his hand.  Emmett did not like that.  For the rest of the parade, whenever someone or something came even close to him, he crumpled up in the back of his stroller.  Maybe we stand a little further back next time.

Emmett waiting for the parade to start:

Then we went on one last ride:

King Triton's Carousel! We went twice.

Again, with the priceless expression.

All in all, a very busy day.

Chew Chew Train
Water Fountain
Jungle Cruise
Teacups
Buzz Lightyear
Pirates of the Carribean
Disneyland Railroad
King Arthur’s Carousel (2x)
Dumbo
Winnie the Pooh
Tarzan’s Treehouse
Mike and Sulley to the Rescue
Pixar Play Parade
King Triton’s Carousel (2x)

I don’t think I’ve ever been on that many rides in one day before.  I love going on Thursdays.

Big social weekend coming up, and there’s sure to be plenty of pictures!  Stay tuned!

Comparison Friday 2.19 – Settling in for the long haul

With the holidays and New Year”s behind us, the Wong clan has hunkered down for what will be a decidedly tough couple of months.  Lucky for us, the weather’s nice (it’s supposed to be 81° on Sunday!!).  Now, if we could only find a way to get Emmett to be less cranky (he’s been quite cranky the past few days, I think he was spoiled by all the attention during Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Happy Friday, everyone.

Comparison Friday 2.18 – We seem to have brought some of 2008 with us…

We have one remaining holdover from the old year that passes… we have all managed to remain some kind of sick over the new year’s.  We’re all on the mend, but we felt that it didn’t properly convey our physical ailments to dress Emmett up in any of his new Christmas clothes.

This week’s Comparison Friday picture is for Emmett’s Goong Goong, who really likes watching Emmett take his socks off.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Comparison 2.17 – Weather Delay (and Merry Christmas!)

Apologies for the lateness of this post.  We’ve been running all over the bay area visiting family and Emmett’s Daddy is preparing to preach tomorrow.  The above moment comes to you courtesy of Pau Pau’s cell phone.  Emmett is making some very important phone calls.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Comparison Friday 2.16 – Santa Monkey

This week’s outfit courtesy of the Youd clan of Bourne, MA, Lewiston, ME, and soon to be somewhere in Rhode Island.  The younger Youds spent the beginning of the week at Hotel Wong, and are attending to wedding things in Newport Beach over the weekend.

A funny story about Curious George (see last week’s CF).  George sleeps in bed with Emmett (he makes a great pillow).  In the middle of the night, Christina woke up to attend to her whimpering child.  She reached down to pick up the roughly human sized mass that lay in Emmett’s bed, only to find that the mass was not in fact Emmett, but rather a toddler-sized stuffed Curious George.  In the middle of the night, it caused quite a bit of confusion and/or panic.  Luckily, Emmett had not turned into a stuffed animal.  Christina’s aim was just off by a few inches.

Comparison Friday 2.15 – A monkey’s best friend

So, I had this great idea to put George’s shirt on Emmett and take their picture together, but wouldn’t you know that Emmett inherited my “head-size-too-large”-ness, and the shirt wouldn’t fit around his noggin.  Oh, well.

We’ve completed rounds one (Thanksgiving), two (Disneyland with friends) and three (Goo-Goo and Auntie Serina coming to visit), and round four (Steph and Melissa Youd coming next monday!) is coming.  Emmett’s schedule is BLOWING UP!