Dare I go there?

I have neeeevvvveeeer pegged myself as a runner. Never.

Except in elementary school when I loved being on the relay teams. And running the short runs. If it weren't for darn Rachel Allen (who had trees for legs) I would have won every time.

But that was ages ago right? I'm certainly not in the physical shape of people I think of as runners. And I'm nearing the end of my 20's. who picks up running now? It's too late. My glory days as a runner ended the last time I handed Rachel the baton in 5th grade. That's ok, it ended on a high note as we crushed our competition.

Or maybe it doesn't have to end there?

A couple of months ago some friends pitched the idea of doing a mud run and they're so persuasive and enthusiastic that I thought 'sure, why not?'. Turns out I LOVED it. And got 5th place among all females according to the race results. Not bad I'd say.

Then last week I got a call from a coworker:
Her:Hey, have you been working out?
Me: uhhhh no. I need to. Bad. Starting today.
Her: oh good, wanna run the last leg of our marathon relay? Leigh backed out.
Me: when?
Her:uh...Sunday...

Oh sure. 5 days away, hadnt worked out in what turned out to be 3 weeks, and hadn't run 5 miles straight in...wow, a really long time. The mud run was 5 miles but you get to stop and crawl through mud and do pushups and Situps...you get breaks. 5 miles straight? Sure. Who wouldn't want me as a teammate?

Well, turns out I loved it! I was sick most of the week so I couldn't work out like I would have hoped but I still did decently well I think - and now just wish I could do it again and do even better.

Ahh, the runners curse. The drive to beat yourself.

And now 2 of my relay teammates are trying to get me to run a half marathon in August. In my mind there's an insurmountable leap from 5 miles to 13.1. Then again, there's a pretty big leap from 0 to 5 too and I made that one right?

Yikes. Still undecided, but something tells me no one debates a half marathon this long and then decides no. So wish me luck???? Or wish me out of my momentary lapse in judgment please!

Character Recap

Even though William doesn't have a definite favorite, his all-knowing mommy can tell you that he had very selective preference of characters and he had special love for some surprising characters.

Our first morning we had breakfast at Mickey's Surf's Up cafe. Character breakfasts are expensive and after I reserved 2 I started to think I was over doing it. But once I saw William's face the first time he saw them come out I knew we made a great choice. Pluto, daisy, Mickey, Minnie, and stitch were present at the breakfast and while I fully expected Mickey to be the front runner, it was Pluto and daisy who stole the show for him. He had a COMPLETE crush on daisy and was enamored with Pluto. I wish I had taken the pictures with my phone that morning, ill have to post them later - but his face when daisy came to hug him was like a boy with his first crush. It was amazing.

I was also glad we did the character breakfasts because I was surprised by how little interaction there was inside the park. Maybe I was expecting Mickey to accompany us on every ride? I don't know. We did see a lot and get autographs from plenty, but in my mind we were going to have a lot more one on one time :)

William was excited as expected at the presence of lightening McQueen (who William swore was actually lightening's girlfriend, not McQueen himself) and our beloved mater. But he seemed even more excited to see Red- the fire truck who plays a small role in cars.

Another surprising twist was his adoration for tinker bell and Ariel. We met 6 princesses and we only saw Tinkerbell on a float in the parade, but his preference was clear. He even turned 2 princesses away for pictures, then took one with jasmine clearly just to humor me. But he loooooooved Ariel and asked for her for days. The plus side: I got to watch The little mermaid monday night :)

Leading up to our trip his favorite movies (scratch that: his only movies) were Cars and Toy Story. Mickey Mouse clubhouse is always good too but I don't count that as a movie. Anyway, I always thought cars outranked Toy Story but I think that changed this weekend. Either that or it's now an even race. There are 2 pretty awesome interactive Toy Story rides at the park which helped fuel his love. For any toy story buffs, there is one game when you play buzz lightyear's helper and defeat zurg (his enemy), then a second where you ride through a carnival type scene and play various games like shooting arrows to pop virtual balloons, throwing pies at plates, etc. It's a 4D game and you play along with all the characters. It was probably my favorite ride, and when we left there William was even more obsessed with his new toy story toys.

He had a buzz lightyear figurine (which we sadly lost) that he showed to all the princesses and took on all our rides. Then when we lost that one his second favorite was zurg. He showed zurg to the toy story characters when we met them (just Buzz and Woody) and they played with him pretty well. William made the cutest shooting noise ("peoum peoum peoum") and buzz and woody pretended to be shot. Buzz asked to hold zurg and pretended to throw him over the bridge...luckily William didn't burst into tears :) he later recanted the story saying 'I shot buzz with zurg! Then buzz tried to throw zurg over the balcony but its ok mommy he was just playing with me'.

So...while I thought William's favorites would rank like this:
Mickey
Mater
Lightening
Goofy
Woody
Then a trail of others, I think it actually went

Pluto
Buzz
Red
Mater
Daisy
Ariel
And a trail of others

Maybe it was the shock factor? After all, he KNEW we'd see Mickey. No one ever told him to expect to hug a princess or play with buzz lightyear!

Wow

I'm not going to take the time to check, but I'm thinking this is the longest dry-spell in my little blog's history.  And while it seems like forever since I wrote, it also seems like just yesterday tax season was beginning - and it was just one head spin after another for 2.5 months.  

But I'm back.  That's what matters right?

I've been thinking for days about how to re-introduce myself to my blog, and also how to capture the essence of our family vacation...it's not an easy task that's for sure.

You may or may not remember, but when I was 6 months pregnant with William I went to a conference for work in Orlando.  I blogged about my excitement for weeks leading up to it and even though I was unable to ride any rides, I was alone, and my conference didn't end until 5pm I still spent $50 to go to Disneyworld for 3 hours.  Why?  Because Disney is my mecca.  

When I wrote about it almost 4 years ago I probably explained my personal history with Disney so I don't need to go TOO far into my history, the exciting part for me is that it's not just my distant memories of Disney on Ice with my dad and mom, but now it's my very fresh memories of introducing my son to the wonderful world of Disney.

It was fantastic.  It was amazing.  It was perfect.

The weather was absolutely wonderful (tipped over 90 once or twice which is too hot in my book but I kind of glazed over that part and pretended it was still 85).  Blue skies, bright sun, nice breeze - it was gorgeous.  Our hotel was right across the street so we could see the ferris wheel from our balcony and we only had to walk half of a mile to get to the entrance.

I'll write more in days to come about specific details and stories from the trip, but the best part for me was seeing it all through William's eyes.  His young perspective was incredible.  While Austin and I were looking at the maps of the two parks trying to plan out how we could tackle the course and see it all William was happily in Heaven with one little piece of the pie.  If Disneyland were no more than just Cars Land (or Toy Story pier, or toontown - you get the idea) he would have been just as pleased.  He didn't need it ALL for it to be magical - seeing one character was magic enough and the rest was just more and more icing. And who doesn't love icing?

His favorite
Whenever we ask him who his favorite character was, or what his favorite ride was, his answer changes - and I love that. I love that he has no real favorite because each time he thinks back he thinks of something different. We rode so many rides, saw so many characters and made so many wonderful memories. I've been wanting a special family vacation for a long time and I'm so thankful we got to go to Disneyland. And while he may not have a distinct favorite moment, I do:
Watching the World of Color light/water show on our first night.

Now we're back home but not quite life as usual - dada left this morning for Arizona. So while our Disney countdown is over now we have a new countdown. 55 days til we pick dada up at the airport! Good thing we love counting :)

More on Disney to come, I promise...