Disneyland "The Happiest Place on Earth"

Growing up I've been to Disneyland several times, but have never done a character meal.  While planning this one, everyone told me that it was a "must do."  And I have to say that it was definitely a "must do."  We woke up the girls bright and early again (sorry sleep deprived children...you have to go have fun), then headed to the Goofy's Kitchen for an AMAZING breakfast.  Before you sit down to eat, or spill on yourself, you get to meet the Goofy-man himself.  Awesome?  Yes. 

Then they sit you down at a table and tell you to help yourself to the awesome buffet and wait for characters to come find you.  There was the typical scrambled eggs, fruit, yogurt, and Mickey Mouse pancakes, and to Jeremy's delight there was also everything else under the sun.  New Orleans hash, salsa, ham, potatoes, peanut butter and jelly pizza, hot dogs, salmon, soup, croissants, chicken nuggets, eggs Benedict, brownies, dirt cups, ice-cream, banana foster...what a meal!  The girls ate their Mickey Mouse pancakes then headed straight for the dessert, mainly the gummy worms in dirt cups.  Delicious!  Who knew four teeth can successfully chomp a gummy worm? 

However, when the characters started to call, McKenzie's happiness turned to terror.  She wanted nothing to do with these friendly giant stuffed animals. 

While we ate we were visited by Captain Hook. 

Cambrie gave Pluto a big kiss on the nose and he was super flattered. 

And Snow White was there representing the princesses. 

Chip and Dale were there, so we got to see them again.  And Baloo would periodically lead all the kids in a dance party in the middle of the floor.  But for some reason Cambrie didn't want to get too close to him and we never got his autograph.  After we were stuffed to the brim we walked outside to get a picture of the giant sorcerer's hat. 

Before we got started on all of the rides, we went for some more character meet and greets.  Number One on the list was Tinkerbell.  The line didn't look terribly long but it still took us awhile to get through.  So we looked at the pond. 

We tried to distract Cambrie while secretly taking her picture. 

And we played Rind Around the Rosie. 

Finally it was time to see the fairies at Pixie Hollow.  Iridessa was first, and she considered Cambrie a fairy expert because she actually knew her name. 

Then we made it to Tinkerbell's house.  Yippee.  Cambrie was a little shy at seeing her favorite fairy, but dutifully handed over her autograph book and smiled for pictures. 

When Tinkerbell took the autograph book to sign it, she turned over the cover to look at it and when she saw that it was one made especially for her, she gave Cambrie a great big hug.

When planning our vacation, I knew that McKenzie would probably like just a few select rides.  There is so much singing and music in It's a Small World that I thought she would love the ride.  O contraire...she was terrified of the singing and dancing little robots.  She was clingy and grabbing at me the whole time.  She could not get off that ride soon enough. 

All of the princesses hang out at the Fantasy Faire.  We stopped by to see how long the meet and greet line was, and were appalled when we found on it was at least a 90 minute wait.  Yikes!  I went and stood in line while Jeremy took Cambrie to a show that was going on.  They caught just the last few minutes of it and danced around a May pole. 

After the show, three princesses were standing down on the stage so we rushed down to get in line for their autographs before they left.  We hopped in Cinderella's, but she had to go before we got to her.  So next we got in Aurora's line.  We made it through just in time before they stopped that line too.  She was the honorary last entry in Cambrie's book. 

While we were there, a princess story telling was getting ready to start.  So we took a seat in the front and sat entranced while Cinderella told us her story.  Even McKenzie sat still to enjoy it. 

 Afterwards the girls sat on the story telling throne pretending to be princesses. 

McKenzie had basically had her fill of fun by that point and went back to the hotel for a nap.  The rest of us went to Adventureland.  We went to a show at the Tiki Room, another show I thought McKenzie might have enjoyed.  We went on a jungle cruise, which Cambrie thought was awesome until a school of piranha's attacked the boat right next to where she was sitting.  Then she jumped up and tried to run to the other side of the boat, all the while grabbing at me and tripping over the other passengers' feet.  We even explored Tarzan's tree house. 

By the afternoon Cambrie was ready for some down time so we went to Tom Sawyer's Island and explored the pirate's caves.  Cambrie thought the skeleton climbing gym was pretty awesome.  And I love this picture just because it's kind of gruesome that she's climbing on bones. 

With McKenzie gone, Cambrie didn't have a stroller and had to walk.  I don't blame her for getting tuckered out by the end of the day.  Having fun is hard work.

We saved the Dumbo ride for McKenzie when she woke up.  It was her first real ride and she loved it.   Too bad the wait was so long or else we could have done it a few times. 

Rapunzel was gone by the time we found her tower, but we still took a picture next to her golden hair spilling out of the window. 

And the last ride of the day was the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  We went on this ride the most because of the ease and convenience of the fast pass.  Cambrie also thought it was a hoot.  After we got off she'd always ask if we could do it again, and again, and again.  She started out timid, but by the eighth ride she was a pro.  On the last ride her hands were up in the air and she was screaming with the rest of us.  There was a row of super screamers behind us so I couldn't hear how loudly Cambrie was screaming, but when I asked how loud she was, she just told me that her screamer was sore.  She must have been really screaming then.  Can you see her little hands sticking up next to Jeremy?

By the time we went to get dinner we were all worn out so we decided to stake out seats for Fantasmic that night.  We ended up getting pretty great seats that we could sit and watch the show the whole time.  McKenzie was a little nervous about the whole thing, but learned to tolerate it.  Cambrie really enjoyed it but fell asleep by the time the fireworks started.  I guess that's a sure sign of a good time though.  So it was a quick two day stint in Disneyland, but that's all my girls could handle.  They were just exhausted by the end.  And honestly, I was too.  What a great trip though.

"Now Serving SoCal"

 

All right folks, I think I have found my new favorite thing...Ragnar races.  I just raced from Huntington Beach, CA to Coronado Island with the 11 coolest girls.  And I may be biased, but my van was the COOLEST!  The morning the race started, Van #1 headed off to the start line while we decorated our van.  I had made magnets to put on the side of the van, but apparently they flew off of Van #1, so we ended up putting all of our on the back of the van like bumper stickers.  But we have some crafty people in our van and we covered every square inch of our van with window paint.  It looked awesome...I wonder how hard it was to clean....

After our van was decked out, it was time to head to the first major exchange.  We had to check in all of our night time safety gear and pick up our bib numbers.  Then we waited, and waited, and waited for our runner to come through the exchange point.  In the meantime, "Peanuts or pretzels anyone?"

After Lisa took off for her leg, the butterflies started going crazy in my stomach.  I always get butterflies when I compete, but it's always been worse for relays.  We all hopped into the van to head to the start of my leg, only to get stuck in the sand!  Ah!  We didn't really have time to dig ourselves out, but luckily for us (and unfortunately for them) there was another van also stuck.  They were from Minnesota and have had plenty of practice getting cars out of snow drifts.  So he hopped in and rocked our van until we were able to get enough traction to push it free.  Those were a tense couple of minutes.  We rewarded our rescuers with peanuts and pretzels, courtesy of the flight attendants of Mile High. 

Once we got going, it was just a matter of run, drive, sleep, repeat. 

Each of us had three legs that varied in length from 2.5 miles to 9.7 miles.  Our first legs were run in the afternoon in 85 degree weather.  It was sooo hot.  I made it half way through my 5.5 mile leg before I started getting dizzy from the dehydration.  I didn't have any water with me and I didn't know where my van was.  An older gentleman running next to me offered me some water, and at that point I didn't care who it came from, I said yes and made it through my leg.  After that we decided to stay as close to our runner as possible so that we could offer them water every two miles or so.  Even with all of that support, one of our runners got really dehydrated and walked/cried/jogged her way past her exchange and we had to go find her.  Don't worry, and extra 1.5 miles won't hurt anybody.  Here we are stopped and waiting to support one of our girls. 

Needless to say, we were exhausted after our first legs.  We found an Olive Garden for dinner, then tried to catch some zzz's while van 1 was racing.  We parked in an open field with all the other vans and hoped for the best.  We only had benches/seats in the van for five of us, so our littlest team member, Kimberlie slept up on top of the dash.  If it wasn't so cold that night it would have been a pretty good solution.  Of course, you can't expect six girls to sleep in a van without a little slumber party giggles.  We had almost fallen asleep when Lisa started talking in her sleep, "Ehh."  That totally set us off and we laughed at nothing for a good five minutes.  

Our night runs were fantastic.  The weather had cooled off and we had a full one hour nap...heck, we were full of energy.  I managed to hold a strong and steady pace up my second straight hill run of the race.  And I got to run with Pete from Biggest Loser.  Yes, we saw Mark too.  We rubbed shoulders with famous people :) 

In fact, everyone did great on their night runs and we were very excited for our last legs.  We camped out one more time, slept one more hour, and went to wait at the next exchange.  This exchange was near Torrey Pines and we sat up on a bluff overlooking the ocean.  It was gorgeous. 

But you can only look at the ocean for so long before you start to talk about strange things like finding your third thumb.

On the back of the van we recorded our "kills," or how many people you pass during your run.  This was after two of our legs and we were pretty proud of ourselves, we really added to it on our last leg.  From this perspective you can really see how awesome our bumper stickers are.

Then it was time to start our third and final legs!  Yippee!  Our van all got to run at least part of their last leg within sight of the ocean.  Except for poor Jamie, she ran next to a naval base!  It was beautiful running next to the ocean, but since it was so beautiful, you can bet people were there.  They don't close the course since it is so long, so you just have to navigate around people.  I ran on the boardwalk and it was so crowded.  I was dodging bicycles, dog walkers, roller bladers, and other runners.  It was total chaos.  When I saw my mile marker for my last mile I was so excited.  I kicked it into gear and ran the best mile of my race.  I started thinking that the mile was lasting a little long, but then I saw a group of runners gathered ahead and figured that was the exchange.  I ran up in a full out sprint only to find out that the group of runners was a lost group of runners.  Someone had moved our direction sign and we were a mile from the exchange in the wrong direction.  I nearly lost my lunch at that news.  Luckily one girl had a map and we managed to find our way.  We came in from the wrong direction and in total chaos.  But at that point we didn't care.  From then on we sent all of our runners out with a cell phone, which came in handy because there were more missing directional markers.  What a pain. 

At the end of the race there is a point where you can join up with your final runner so you can all cross the finish line together.  Erin was our last runner and she was so excited to be done that the rest of us could barely keep up with her. 

Here is a picture of our entire team.  I felt bad I didn't get to spend much time with the girls in the other van, but that's just kind of the nature of the race.  We still had a fantastic time. 

And what a way to cross the finish line, in front of a beautiful sunset.

Do you ever wonder?

Do you ever wonder if you're a little OCD?  Sometimes I think I'm a little too particular about things.  For example:

• My bed has to be made the exact same way every day.  If the top isn't folded down, it really bugs me and I will fix it before I climb into bed. 
• I have to have the girls' beds made the same way every morning.  When Cambrie is a sweetheart and makes her own bed, I really have to fight the instinct to correct the mistakes. 
• The dishes have to be clean by the time I wake up in the morning.  I need to start off my day with a fully stocked cabinet of sippy cups, bowls, and spoons.  If I have to run the dishwasher in the morning instead of while I'm sleeping the night before....I get grumpy and it throws of my whole morning.
• The blinds in the kitchen need to be open by the time we eat breakfast.
• They also need to be closed the minute it gets dark outside.
• The house needs to be picked up before I go to my room for the night.  If I wake up and there are still books on the floor...grumpiness ensues.
• My clothes all have to face the same direction on the hanger.  I like to have them hung so I can see the front while I'm deciding what to wear.
• If I clean something, my girls are basically not allowed to touch anything because I don't want to clean it again.
• The blankets on my girls' shelf are arranged by fabric type.
• My shower, hair, and make-up routine is exactly the same every morning, as well as my bedtime routine.  Jeremy laughs because he can tell by what noises the soap and water and making how close I am to being done.
• I'm on such a routine that at night after the girls go to bed, it doesn't matter if I'm hungry or not, I will eat a treat anyway while watching TV.
• I like my girls' clothes to match.  If they don't match...I'm not as patient with them during the day.  Weird, I know.

But at the same time, I can't be that bad. With all my very particular traits, you'd think I'd actually have things organized.

• The clothes in my drawer rarely stay folded.
• My necklaces aren't even in a jewelry box, they're in a P.F. Chang's take-out container.
• The desk is always piled with projects, bills, and things to file.
• My spice cabinet is a maze to negotiate.
• Good luck trying to find a working pen in our house.
• I'm in luck if I vacuum once a week.
• I'm in luck if I mop once every two weeks.
• I have "junk boxes" where all the extra stuff ends up when I'm cleaning.  Those rarely get sorted.
• I don't even have a good space to put my runner gear...it's in a pile next to my lotion of all things.
• Our shoes live in a massive pile by the garage door.

So I don't know.  Maybe I'm crazy but trying to ignore it.

RAGNAR team pics

In three short days I am hoping on a plane and headed to California, where my 11 teammates and I will run a 200 mile race together, Ragnar SoCal.  When I first found out about this race last summer, Jamie Bohn had just moved to Erie and let me know they needed another teammate and wondered if I'd like to join.  True, I was still homeless at the moment living with my parents.  And it was also true that I didn't know anyone but Jamie who lived in Colorado.  But I don't like to turn down an adventure so I said yes.  Since then we've had a few parties and a few training runs together and these girls are fantastic.  They are funny and spontaneous and just a lot of fun to be around, so I am very glad I said yes.  To get ready for our race we decided to take some team pictures.  Our team name is The Mile High (Runners) Club, obviously a double entendre...anyway...we live in Denver.  So the girls thought it would be fun if we had simple costumes and dressed as stewardesses and had our pictures taken with some fun planes.  We went to the Spirit of Flight museum in Erie and had a fun little photo shoot.  Over the last few days I have been editing pictures, photo shopping in absent team members, and trying to be creative.  Here is a sample of what I have been working on:

It's getting warmer!

This Friday and Saturday were absolutely wonderful.  The temperatures were up in the 70's so we pulled out the shorts and sunscreen and tried to play outside a lot.  Since it was also Conference weekend, we had to squeeze in the play between sessions, but we did a pretty good job.  Cambrie practiced riding her two-wheeler bicycle.  We picked this purple beauty up from a thrift store last fall for $6.  I wonder how long she'll keep it (since the tires are quite bald).  She's also using the only helmet we have in her size, a snowboarding helmet.  But despite her duds, she had fun.  Riding on two wheels is definitely different that riding on three. 

Cambrie also requested to have her fingernails painted.  McKenzie didn't want to be left out of the action, so we painted one of her hands too. 

And this weekend we picked up new swimming suits and matching rash guards (plus shorts) for the girls.  With Cambrie's braids she totally looks like she's ready for island time.