Director

Published
by
Melissa
on 2/3/2010
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I gave my parents a good laugh a couple of weeks ago when I asked them a parenting question.

“So, how did you deal with 4-year old me bossing everyone around all the time?”

Apparently, I was quite the little director in my youth and took great pleasure in scripting the lives of those around me. Let’s just say the apple doesn’t fall too far from the Bossy Tree.

Lily: Mommy, I’m going to put my baby down for a nap and then you say, “Oh, what a sweet baby” and then I’ll walk away and then my baby will wake up and then you pick her up and then I’ll come back and say, “Hey, where’s my baby?” and then you say, “I picked her up because she was crying” and then I’ll say, “Oh thank you!” and then my baby will toot and then you’ll laugh but not like, “Ha Ha” like “Hee Hee Hoo Hoo.”

Me: *blank stare*

Lily: OK Mommy?

Me: Wait, what?

Lily: *UUUUUGGGGGHHHHH*

Me: Just tell me again what I’m supposed to do.

Lily: *sigh* OK, I’m going to put my baby down for a nap…

Silver Lining

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/31/2010
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Now that Cameron is in a toddler bed and knows how to open his door he has made a habit out of coming to our room at some point during the night. Sometimes it’s 5 a.m., sometimes it’s 1 a.m. I hear his door shut over the monitor and then 4.2 seconds later I hear our door open and then shut. Three seconds later I hear, “gggrrrrroooooooaaaaaannnn” and open my eyes to see a fuzzy headed boy standing next to the bed sleepily clutching his blankie and Mickey. I reach out and pull him on to the bed where he settles in between me and Jason and quickly drifts back to sleep. Sometimes he snuggles me a little too close for comfort. Sometimes he digs his toes in Jason’s back.

So, you ask, where’s this silver lining? If Cam was still sleeping in his crib he would still wake up at unfortunate hours and he would still wake me up. The difference? Now that he just helps himself to our room I don’t have to leave the comfort of my warm bed. Sweet nighttime bliss.

The Rest…

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/28/2010
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A sinus infection is kicking my ass this week so I’ll take advantage of this down time to wrap up our vacation recap.

We spent Tuesday at Animal Kingdom but apparently we didn’t take many pictures. Animal Kingdom tends to be more of a half day park for us. I know we were headed back to the resort by about 3:00 or so. Highlights of the day were the Nemo and Lion King shows which are both fantastic! The safari was fun as usual and I got to ride the Dinosaur ride with Lily (which she did NOT enjoy). I actually kind of wish we had purchased the ride photo for Dinosaur. Picture Lily huddled over in my lap while I hover over her trying to quiet her screams. Yeah…

The kids were cracking us up when we got there by pretending that Cameron was Baby Cooper and he was scared of elephants so Lily was holding his hand to make him feel better.

On the bus back to the resort Cam was really restless and cried almost the entire time. Very unlike him but he seemed happier once we got back to the room. I was starting to feel a little punky though. I thought I just had an upset stomach from scarfing down some Honey Chicken earlier in the day. Next thing we know, Cameron is puking on the floor between the beds. Nasty. Shortly after I found myself in the bathroom chucking my lunch. Not fun. We had to have someone come to clean the carpet in the room and Cameron and I turned in really early that night after he threw up two more times.

Wednesday morning we had reservations for a princess breakfast at Akershus at Epcot. Cameron seemed to be feeling better and I tried to rally as best I could. The breakfast was nice and everyone enjoyed the food. Lily was thrilled to finally be able to wear her princess dress!

We didn’t go too crazy at Epcot that day but made sure to get on the Figment ride. My kids LOVE that ride! Figment and Spaceship Earth are their ‘musts’ at Epcot. We also walked through the different countries and got to meet Mulan and Jasmine and Aladdin.

On Thursday we actually had warm-ish weather for the Magic Kingdom…

…and decided to check out Fantasmic at Hollywood Studios that night.

We headed back to the Magic Kingdom on Friday for a whirl-wind couple of hours before leaving for the airport.

We’re already looking forward to our next trip which will be after Cam is at least 40″ tall. I’m really excited about the idea of going sans stroller and being able to do most of the rides together as a family!

Coaster Cam!

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/25/2010
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As I mentioned, Cameron scored his first roller coaster ride on our recent trip to Disney World! He was beyond excited about this and it was so fun for all four of us to ride together!

And, yes, that is Lily screaming the entire time!

Magic Kingdom

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/23/2010
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I love the Magic Kingdom! We ended up at the Magic Kingdom on at least three different days.

We had a big full day at the Magic Kingdom on Monday. This was the first time we were at the park for the opening welcome, where the characters show up on the train, and stayed until the park closed after the Spectromagic parade and the Wishes fireworks show. Historically, we aren’t huge fireworks people (Lily was scared of them when she was younger) but the Wishes fireworks are WONDERFUL! I’m so glad we stuck around for them!

I have to take a minute and mention the amazing stroller we rented during our trip.

We knew we needed a double stroller but didn’t want to take our big jogging stroller on the plane and we weren’t too thrilled at the idea of taking the sit ‘n stand this year since it doesn’t offer any ‘nappable’ seats. The stroller we rented is a Baby Jogger City-Mini Double that was delivered and picked up directly at the resort and was only about $100 for our entire trip. Both seats fully reclined and it was very easy to push and fold up and the kids were both comfortable in it. We even had several 1 hours+ naps from both of them. It was well worth the rental fee especially since it included the weather cover. That turned out to be invaluable since it was so chilly during our trip.

The big highlight of the Magic Kingdom was that Cameron finally got to ride his first roller coaster! He was more than tall enough to ride Goofy’s Barnstormer which, incidentally, was also Lily’s first roller coaster! It’s like we plan these things or something! I’ll never forget the look on his face when we stood next to the height chart and realized he was tall enough to ride. “We gonna ride the roller coaster? And ME!” Yeah, buddy, you get to ride too! He loved it and couldn’t wait to ride again! I actually have a crappy/awesome video his him on his first ride but I have yet to get that ready for blog posting. Soon…probably.

We took a trip to Pixie Hollow to visit Tink and her friends but we let Disney do the pictures so I don’t have any of those to share yet. Although he was shy at first, Cam got some sugar from Tink…

My kids approach the character greetings as if they are doing a very serious job. We got Lily an autograph book thinking that it might help her to interact more with the characters. Nope. She dutifully takes her book (already open to the correct page) and her marker to the character and watches while they do the autograph. When they’re done she takes the book back, gets in position and turns and smiles of the camera. Sometimes the characters try to dance with her or talk with her but she is all business trying to get that picture. Cracks me up! Cameron will talk to some of them a little bit but other times he’s too shy and isn’t even interested in meeting the character. This year Lily started asking us if it was the REAL Buzz Lightyear/Belle/Tinkerbell/Daisy or they were just wearing costumes. We asked her what she thought and sometimes she thought it was costumes and sometimes she thought it was real. We just let her go with whatever her conclusion is.

Many rides were ridden and we even caught the Dream Along With Mickey show that we all have memorized.

On Monday night we ended up at the Liberty Tree Tavern character dinner (presented by Stauffer’s). YUM!

26.2

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/22/2010
5 Comments Tags: , , .

Alright! Race reports!

Let’s start with the kids’ races on Saturday. It was rainy and cold on Saturday but we headed to the Wide World of Sports Complex so the kids to take part in Mickey’s Marathon Kids’ Fest. Cameron was scheduled for a 100 meter run and Lily had a 200 meter run. I can’t go so far to say the kids had a good time but I think there were parts of the event that they liked. Overall, it seemed like things were pretty disorganized which really surprised me since it was a Disney event. I don’t know how much the weather had to do with it though. The different age groups were lined up at the appropriate start lines around the track; 100M, 200M, 400M. There was a lot of confusion about when a particular group should start and they had to restart some groups a couple of times. Had the weather been typical Florida weather I think it would have been better.

Anyway, on to the pictures!

Race numbers!

Waiting for the 100M dash to start

Lily and Grayson lined up for their 200M race

Victory!

We spent some time at the Magic Kingdom that afternoon and all turned in early because…

Jason and I had to get up at 3:15 IN THE MORNING to catch a bus from the resort to the race at 3:45 IN THE MORNING so we could be on time for the marathon. It was kind of an odd thing to leave our sleeping kids in the hotel room when we headed to the marathon. We had connecting rooms with Nate and Kelly so we just opened the doors between the rooms so the kids could go in there when they woke up. But STILL…totally weird to leave your kids in basically the middle of the night.

Moving on…

We got to Epcot at 4:00 and settled in the pre-race area to wait for the start. It was a little surreal that morning. Again, I think the weather played a huge factor in our overall experience. There was loud music and one of the Green Army Men (from Toy Story) was trying to get everyone PUMPED UP! Most of the race participants were just huddled together trying to stay warm. I know I was despite my running tights, sweat pants, tech tee, two long sleeved tech tees, long sleeved t-shirt, trash bag, gloves and headband I was still shivering too much to take part in any of the pre-race fun.

(Please note: that is NOT a giant roll of belly fat just beneath my race number. It’s my race bag that is filled with my phone, Shot Bloks, etc)

We were herded from the pre-race area about a half mile to the actual start line. Quite a cattle like experience. Jason and I kind of screwed up with our registration and ended up being placed in the last start corral. When we registered for the race back in August we anticipated finishing the marathin in about 4 hours 30 minutes. Since we entered a time less than 5 hours we were required to substantiate this time by turning in results from another race. I had yet to run a race long enough to qualify but expected to do so during the fall. After I had the stress reaction my plans to run another race got scrapped and we never did submit substantiation. So, we were placed in the last corral. Quite a bummer, really but we ended up starting about three corrals up. I think they were being pretty lax on things due to the weather.

After about an hour in the corrals they started releasing the racers in waves. First the wheel chairs and then the elite runners. We finally got started at 6:05 which was about the same time the elite runners were crossing the 4 mile mark…about 22 minutes after their start gun. There was a general feeling of, “Well, obviously they’re going to TOTALLY smoke my ass.”

Mickey and the gang saw us off at the start line.

The first 4 or 5 miles were pretty congested and we kept about a 13 or 14 minute pace; just barely jogging, really. It was too crowded to do much else. Epcot was the first park at about the 4.2 mile mark and the feeling came back to my toes around then.

I ditched my trash bag right as we were getting into Epcot and there were a few times over the next couple of miles that I regretted it. The next few miles took us along the Disney road system (highway) en route to the Magic Kingdom at mile 10. Not much exciting for those next few miles. There were several spectators out on the course and they were fantastic at cheering for the runners! We started to fall into our pattern of walking through the water stations even if we weren’t getting anything to drink at a particular station.

The sun came up as we made our way to the Magic Kingdom which is where the fun really started! We entered the Kingdom through a back stage are and poured on to main street. We ‘lost’ a lot of time in the Magic Kingdom because we stopped to soak it in and grab some pictures with the characters.

Captain Hook and Smee

Princess Tiana, Prince Naveen and Louis

We even got to run right through the middle of Cinderella’s castle!

After leaving the Magic Kingdom we started our 4 mile trek to Animal Kingdom. Much of this leg of the race seemed to be on more behind the scenes roads. Not too much exciting here either. I remember seeing some accordian players and a piano player (not at the same time) and there were more ‘cheer stations’ for spectators to shout encouragement. We went past the half way point feeling pretty good and our pace had picked up to more like 11 or 12 minutes per mile. Pretty soon I shed my long sleeved tee and my sweat pants so I was down to respectable running gear!

I was really liking the walking through water stations strategy and we grabbed some bananas at around the 14 mile mark to try to sate our increasing hunger. Overall, it felt like the miles were ticking by pretty quickly at this point. We made our way into the back part of Animal Kingdom which was open to the public by this time. It was kind of funny running past all of the vacationing families!

Shortly after Animal Kingdom is where I started to really feel like I was running a marathon. I suppose that makes sense given that we’d
already completed about 18 miles which made this my longest run ever. Around mile 20 is where I really started to feel it. My left knee really started to hurt during the 4 miles between Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We did a two mile out and back near the Wide World of Sports that felt endless and then we shifted our walk break so we were walking up and down the highway ramp. This was a very flat course except for those damn exit ramps. Not only were we running up an incline but the pavement was ramped which really messed with our gait. We kept running to the top or bottom of the road to try to find a more level surface.

Mile 22 brought us to Hollywood Studios but I don’t have any good pictures to share from that park. By that time we were in ‘finish this’ mode and just concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. I’m pretty sure that the course measurements were screwed up during the last 4 miles of the race because those miles seemed A LOT longer than the first four miles. Obviously a measurement error on the course. Right? Anyway…

We left Hollywood Studios and headed along the walk way to Epcot. I was dealing with dueling pains now. My knee felt better when I was running but my muscles felt better when I was walking. And those first few steps running again after walking for a minute? HOOOBOY! I was a little bit afraid of my knee just deciding to stop working and leaving me in a huddled mess on the course. We finally made it to the World Showcase are in Epcot and ran through several countries though I can’t really remember which ones. I know we ended at Mexico and went to the front of the park. All along the way people were telling us “Only 1 more mile!”, “Just around the corner!”, “You’re almost there!” It was nice for inspiration but I was craving something more exact. Tell me how many more steps I have to take or how many more minutes. We had passed the 25 mile marker not long after entering Epcot and were were convinced that there wasn’t going to be a 26 mile marker…they would just do the finish line at 26.2. Wrong. We finally came on the 26 mile marker and got energized that we only have 2/10 of a mile to go! My muscles and mind wanted to pick up the pace but my knee wouldn’t let me.

We rounded the final corner to see the finish line and bleachers filled with spectators cheering for us. A pretty cool feeling really! I gave Goofy a high five on my way to the finish and Jason and I crossed the line with our hands together and arms in the air! We collected our medals and headed straight to the medical tent for some ice for my knee. Victory was ours! Well, kind of. Depends on what your definition of victory is. The ACTUAL victory went to a guy from Brazil who crossed the finish line at about the time we crossed the half way point. Maybe even before we were half way. We finished in 5 hours and 57 minutes which is good enough for me. Here are our split times:

5 Mile: 1:10:08
10 Mile: 2:10:28
Half Split: 2:59:59
20 Mile: 4:29:55
Finish: 5:57:08

Our goal with the race was to complete it. It was our first marathon and given my injury and lack of training for the 10 weeks leading up to the race I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. As we rode the bus back to the resort Jason turned to me and said, “I know we just finished and I’ll give it a few days but I’m never running one of those again.” At the time I completely agreed with him but a few days later I know I heard myself saying that maybe I would try the Goofy challenge next year (half marathon on Saturday and full on Sunday). I am curious to know what kind of time I could get if I was able to complete a marathon training program. We’ll see. Maybe next fall I’ll try a local marathon and see how that goes.

Laundry Day

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/19/2010
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I had some helpers with the laundry this morning!

How long until they can mow the lawn for us?

Let’s See How Many Posts I Can Make About My Vacation…

Published
by
Melissa
on 1/18/2010
3 Comments Tags: , .

We just returned from what is turning out to be our annual trek to Disney World. One word: COLD! Once again, Orlando was experiencing record lows during our visit. Last year we waited in 28 degree temps before our breakfast in Cinderella’s castle. This year it was 26.2 degrees when we started the marathon. Funny, huh? 26.2 degrees, 26.2 miles. Funny if you’re CRAZY, I suppose! Although, I have to admit that I wasn’t absolutely miserable that morning and the feeling came back to my toes by about the 5 mile mark. More marathon stories to come later!

We kind of started our trip a night early due to some snow that was expected to be heaviest at exactly the time our plane was scheduled to depart. SUPER! To avoid making the 1 hour drive to the airport in the snow on Thursday morning we headed to the in-laws house on Wednesday night. It was nice to know that we were that much closer to the airport. We went to bed in The Room Where Time Stops (seriously, this lovely guest room with a private bath must be part of some time warp or something. Every time we sleep there we fall asleep for what seems like hours only to wake up feeling fully rested and see that it’s midnight. Then it’s 2:00, then 2:30, and so on. I’m sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that we’re often on our way to the airport or something but it’s bizarre. Jason and I commented on it independently of each other on Thursday morning.)

Anyway, we woke Thursday morning to steady snowfall and about 2 or 3 inches already on the ground. The drive across town was slow going and a little slick at times but we made it to the airport pretty easily. Our flight left about 20 minutes late and we headed to Orlando!

Lily enjoyed a snack and a new Barbie movie…

Cameron enjoyed a nap (which allowed me to read!)…

The flight was uneventful and we made it to Disney’s Pop Century resort without incident. Gotta love that Magical Express! We were excited to find that our request for connecting rooms with our friends had been fulfilled!

That evening we visited the marathon expo to pick up our race packets. The expo had a lot of fun stuff but it was about 1,498 degrees in that building and the kids were beyond done with being there so we headed back to the resort. When we got back we found that only 2 of our 3 checked bags had been delivered to the room. So, we spent the next hour or so tracking down the missing bag. Luckily, they found our bag at the airport and it was delivered the next morning.

We kicked off the Disney fun by having breakfast with Mickey and the gang at Chef Mickey’s on Friday morning.

Minnie girls! Huge thanks to Grandma for making Lily’s dress and loaning me the sweater!

After breakfast we headed to Hollywood Studios where we got to see Minnie again!

We rode the Toy Story Mania ride and loved it as was expected! Cameron was very upset when he realized he wasn’t big enough to ride the Tower of Terror. Yeah, he’s our kid…two years old and wants to ride the big scary rides!

We also got to meet Woody and Buzz Lightyear, saw the Ariel show, the Indiana Jones show, the car stunt show, the parade, etc. It was a nice low-key day and we headed back to the resort fairly early.

Up next, race weekend recap and photos!

Merry

Published
by
Melissa
on 12/29/2009
1 Comment Tags: .

We had a wonderful Christmas last week. I’ve been thinking about what to write to describe our Christmas but I’m struggling with it for some reason. I think one thing that’s tripping me up is how big the kids look in this picture. It’s amazing when I compare it to last year and the year before.

The kids were both very excited about Christmas this year and the excitement definitely rubbed off on all of us. Their faces lit up when they ran downstairs on Christmas morning to find new scooters, Leapster games, candy, Legos, Batman shirts, pirate shoes, a new Belle dress and other surprises waiting for them under the tree. We had fun visiting with our families that afternoon and evening and the kids were troopers until we finally headed home at 11:00 that night.

We’re slowly getting the debris from the ‘Christmas Bomb’ cleaned up. Most of the new clothes have been moved upstairs and many of them have already been washed and put away. Most of the new toys are still lingering in piles around the living room. They are somewhat organized piles though so we’re making progress.

Dance!

Published
by
Melissa
on 12/18/2009
5 Comments Tags: , .

Lily’s dance class had a holiday party for the final meeting of this semester. We got to come in the room so the kids could show us what they’ve been working on for the past few months. Lily was so looking forward to this! I even made her a Christmas tutu to celebrate the occasion! (I know! I would have never thought that I could throw together a tutu! It’s definitely not perfect but I think it’s pretty darn cute.) Here is the Beautiful Doll dance they have been practicing.