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Just playin' some tunes.


It's a group activity.

Sandy is obsessed with the string bass. And who wouldn't be, really.

Disney Kids Race

By Kris.
As part of the Disney Marathon weekend, there are a series of kids races. Max's age group had to run a 400m race. We tried to get him to practice running in preparation, but he was basically uninterested. Still, once we got to Disneyland, he was convinced that he would win the race. He kept insisting that because he is 3rd fastest in his school class, he would surely be the fastest at Disneyworld. Ginna was not about to let him get away with such an unmerited cocky attitude. This scenario led to many parenting discussions of how to manage the situation. On the one hand, we know that Max isn't very fast or coordinated at this time in his life. On the other hand, we want to encourage him to be active and we don't want him thinking that he isn't athletic. Also, do you just let your kid parade around with some stupid cocky attitude only to get his butt kicked in a race, or do you encourage him to go out there and really try to win?
Ginna/we decided to try to at least introduce to idea to Max that winning would be very difficult because there was going to be a big field of very fast runners.

Finally, we made it to the ESPN zone for the race and there were people everywhere. Max said, "wow, there's too many people here."
Naturally, I got an emergency call from the office and got to spend much of the pre-race time talking with a parent from my practice. I'd complain, but if we didn't have the office, we wouldn't have been taking a trip to Disneyworld either.

We got him lined up and he was pretty nervous, but still confident that he could win it all.

After a long wait for all the younger kids to go, Max finally got to run.

He pushed and shoved his way through the kids after the gun and was losing ground, but not too badly until the inevitable happened--he tripped. (keep in mind that Max has crashed/tripped in every race he's ever done)

Honestly, I thought he might quit after falling, but he didn't. He got up and ran his way too the finish.

He certainly didn't win, but since it's Disney everybody wins and he got a medal, which he wore with pride the whole weekend.

We're proud of him too.

::our race::

The half marathon started at 5:30AM on saturday. We'd only arrived on thursday afternoon, so we definitely weren't acclimated to the time difference. So 5:30 really felt like 3:30, yikes.
Worse than that, in order to get to the starting gates on time, we had to catch the bus at 3:30AM. SUPER yikes. It was kind of like not sleeping at all. Crazy.
So Kris and I slept out in living room where we wouldn't bother the sleeping family, got up and 3 and headed out for the bus.
The weather was so perfect. It was chilly but not freezing, not a hint of wind or rain and not unusually humid.

We had to wait around a pretty long time before everybody started walking up to the starting corrals. And when I say everybody, I mean EVERYBODY. There were supposed to be about 27,000 people running this race. It was kind of like a sea of humanity.

Kris and I split up to go to our respective corrals, me in the next to slowest and Kris faster. It was kind of a bummer not to have him to chat with, but I talked with the girls standing nearby and got to know a few people whom I never had any chance of seeing again.

I felt a little goofed up with the early wake time and the time change, but I was excited and ready to go.

They set off fireworks at the starting line every time a corral got to leave--this was pretty fun since we could all see them. It was exciting.

When I started running I felt like I could go forever. The low altitude and the wet air combined to make me feel strong. I had to slow myself down after a while so that I could save some energy for later.

Kris did awesome. He didn't walk at all and he kept up a nice strong pace for him.

I ran and walked and walked and ran again.
There were people on stilts at one point cheering us on. There were characters that people were waiting in line to take pictures with. There were high school bands by the side of the road playing tunes and cheering. There was one guy with a big boombox and huge mickey hands cheering us on. There was a hot air balloon in the median at one point.
Then of course we got to run through the Magic Kingdom and right through the castle. It was really fun.

And the sheer number and variety of people kept it interesting too. So many different kinds of people--colors, shapes, sizes, outfits.
At one point I had to stop for a portapotty (ICK) and people just kept streaming by as I waited. It seemed kind of like I just jumped back on the train when I was done, people going by everywhere.


This doesn't even give you a good feel for how many people there were.

We ended in Epcot. I saved just enough energy to run the last mile. I knew Kris was going to be waiting and I wanted him to see me finish with a little gusto!


I was exhausted and sore when I got done, but I felt really proud of myself for doing it. I worked hard to get ready and I was able to do better than I every thought I would've!
And it was fun to have Kris there with me, I knew he was proud of me and impressed.
This is not my favorite picture, but it's the only one I have at the finish, so here you go.


And here are our medals as we rode back to the hotel on the bus to see our boys!

So cool, right?

It was only about 9:30 or so when we got back, but it felt like the middle of the afternoon. Kris and I got to nap later in the day while Kathy took Max out to have fun. Then we limped off on our broken sore legs to meet them.

It was really a great first race. I'd love to do it again sometime!

::disney fun 2::

More fun to report on!
We got to visit all the parks on our little jaunt, though we didn't get to ride or visit everything that we hoped to. The Soarin' line was so long that we had to give up at Epcot, and the Peter Pan ride in the Magic Kingdom was hopeless.
We did get to do the Toy Story one though, and the new Star Tours (which was awesome enough to make me carsick!)
We got to eat a lot (too much) decent to good food and the weather was PERFECT. It didn't rain on us once and it was never warmer than 80 degrees.

We got to introduce Grandma to the fun of pin trading. Max got to ride the Rocking Roller Coaster for the first time and he was brave enough to go right back on again after.
Here we are hanging out waiting for one of our many meals to show up.



Probably the best part of the whole trip was getting to spend time together doing stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with work!
And the second best thing was undoubtedly the weather. It was so nice to have weather like that in the middle of our winter.

The sad news is that Sandy got sick the night of our second to last day. He got a big fever and was so miserable. So he was up half the night and then slept most of the next day. Kris went home that morning to get some work done, and the rest of us were supposed to play. I sent Kathy and Max to the Magic Kingdom and watched over little Sandy.
Finally he woke up and we all met up for lunch.

The poor little guy did his best to be a good sport. Then Grandma took him back for more napping and Max and I got to play for a while. This is a picture she sent me later that night.

He felt a lot better by then, thank goodness and was actually eating. You can see his little pink cheeks though--they're the give away that he's still a little sick!
Why do kids always get sick on trips?
The flight home was a bit trying with a slightly sick exhausted baby, but Max was perfect.

But that's getting ahead of myself.
Max wanted a churro the whole trip and we had such a hard time finding one. But finally on the last day when Max and I were exploring the Magic Kingdom I spotted some people enjoying churros. I stopped them and asked where the heck to find them. We finally found them and snarfed them.

(Check out Max's awesome pins. He did some good trading on this trip.)

And last for now, but not least I have a picture of Sandy riding the ant at the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground. Max LOVES that place.

Sandy liked it too, but the uneven-ness and texture of the ground made him feel a little weirded out.
I will leave you with a pretty awesome video of the crawling that resulted. True Mowgli crawling. He also fell on his little head several times because he got so unbalanced. I think that's what happened right when I stopped the video. Wish I would've gotten it documented. It was hilarious.

I'm going to report on the running later!

::disney fun 1::

So all the racing and running and such aside, we had some classic Disney World fun with our leftover time.
We took Kathy to the Animal Kingdom--she'd never been. I loved that Max was still afraid of the 3d Bug's Life movie under the big tree.

The safari ride was as neat as usual. Seeing all the different animals is always so fun.

The baby elephant was A-dorable.

Max was dying to go on his "most favorite" ride, the river rapids one where you get all wet. Of course the best opportunity to do that came up at like 5PM when the sun was almost gone. I'm a nice mom and I went with him anyway.

I definitely got wet and cold--and evidently the ride also caused me to make ugly faces.

On a different day we ate at the German buffet in Epcot. This is Kris's favorite thing to do. The food is so good. The little band that plays is great too, and Max loves to dance and goof around.
Besides the fact that we got seated at a communal table with a cranky old man and a lady that wouldn't stop talking, it was a good night. Actually the lady was really nice, though was too loquacious after a stein of Germany's best bier. And the cranky old man just turned out to be lonely. He talked to Max a lot during the meal and won a lot of points with me.


You can see Germany behind us. And how amazingly flexible the Sand is.

Here we are waiting for the bus so that we can visit our resort pool. The resort was fun, but so spread out that you had to take an internal bus everywhere.

It was a fun pool with a big water slide and a really cute toddler area that Sandy hated.

You can see that Max is set and ready to take some serious underwater videos.

Now this is funny. I have one child that ADORES the characters. I've never really liked people in big costumes that like. I still don't really like them. But Max loves them to death. He gets so excited when he sees them.

At this dinner he was essentially jumping up and down trying to be patient while the characters made the rounds.

BUT
I have another child who HATES the characters. Turns out he thinks they are terrifying, weird and creepy.


And those darn characters won't take no for an answer. They expect to be adored and are dismayed when it doesn't happen. Most of them just kept trying and trying until Sand broke down and I had to send them away.

No babies were harmed in the course of the evening, but he did get really mad. The rest of the restaurant thought he was pretty cute.
I think he's over it by now. I hope anyway.

::unpacking::

So we went to Orlando to join in with thousands and thousands of people for the Disney World marathon weekend. Kris and I ran the half marathon and Max did a kid race. Kris's mom came with us and saved the day by taking awesome care of the kiddos.
Anyway, I have stuff to post about that, but I'm going to have to go backwards--starting with the unpacking.

Finally five days after getting home I'm getting unpacked. I hate hate packing for trips, but unpacking is SO much worse.
But at least there was a cute baby keeping me company.

I've got to get my pictures in order and then I'll report on our fun.

::this year::

My friend Megan started a tradition a while back of choosing a word as a theme for the new year. Some sort of word that was inspiring, or descriptive of something a person might want to do, or be, or remember during the year.
Anyway, I always end up thinking of a scripture that has my word in it. And truly, during the last couple of years, I've though of my word/scripture, and it has helped me remember some of the things I needed to.

So my pick this year was from the Book of Mormon: 2nd Nephi 2:25.
"Adam fell that men might be; and men are that they might have joy."
JOY is my word.

There isn't enough joy in my life. I am so busy, and frazzled and pushed from thing to thing, I hardly have time to see all the good in what's happening around me. I'm so blessed, but I sometimes can't even see it with how quickily everything has to go. Often I feel the opposite of joy--dread, darkness, all those things that come with exhaustion and responsibility and being a grown up.
I want to be joyful. That is what I'm looking for in my life. I'm going to do my best to remember this word and this scripture all year, and make it happen.

In President Monson's talk from October 2011 he spoke so much on this topic.

"This is our one and only chance at mortal life—here and now. The longer we live, the greater is our realization that it is brief. Opportunities come, and then they are gone. I believe that among the greatest lessons we are to learn in this short sojourn upon the earth are lessons that help us distinguish between what is important and what is not. I plead with you not to let those most important things pass you by as you plan for that illusive and nonexistent future when you will have time to do all that you want to do. Instead, find joy in the journey—now."

And more:

"If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

Stresses in our lives come regardless of our circumstances. We must deal with them the best we can. But we should not let them get in the way of what is most important—and what is most important almost always involves the people around us. Often we assume that they must know how much we love them. But we should never assume; we should let them know. Wrote William Shakespeare, “They do not love that do not show their love.” 3 We will never regret the kind words spoken or the affection shown. Rather, our regrets will come if such things are omitted from our relationships with those who mean the most to us."

I should just copy and paste the whole doggone thing here, it's so good. But rather than that, just go and read it yourself.

And be joyful! I'm going to try to too. Thanks for the inspiration Megs, as always.

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::this year last year::

Lots of change in two cute boys. Love them so much!