It's been so long since I hared over here. I wanted to share my website where you can find more me and my web and graphic designer work.

Peter Pan Theme Night

After our recent half marathon in Disneyland, we started getting really excited for our trip to Disney in October.  Running through the park and not getting to go on rides?  A tease!  Luckily, our trip is just around the corner.  

I realized quickly that the boys have not seen most of the older Disney movies.  They love Mickey, and lots of the more recent Disney movies, but they haven't seen a lot of the ones we watched as kids.  So I decided to make a weekly movie night to gear up for the big mouse trip.  

Our first movie was Peter Pan.  I was obsessed with the broadway version of this movie when I was a kid, but hadn't seen it in many years.  Probably about 20 to be honest.  I think you could say that I was just as excited!  

We prepared by talking about the movie to Z Step.  Pirates, mermaids, lost boys, a boy who can fly- how can you go wrong in the eyes of a 3 year old?!  He was so excited for our special movie night.  I got him really excited by having a treasure hunt in our neighborhood first.  I drew up a map, and we headed out the door for the lost treasure! 

RRRRrrr you ready for a treasure hunt?  

 Our first stop was to see our shadows.  Z Step was familiar with his shadow already, because we learned about shadow puppets in our homeschooling last month.  He loves watching his shadow!

Our next step was to pretend to be pirates on our way to Neverland.  Neverland was the dog park.  I think people must have thought we were nuts walking down there.  We were yelling "RRR!" while he was dressed as a pirated, me as a fairy, and with 2 large dogs (we were pet sitting).  Eventually we made it to Neverland, and we played a bit there.  We even pretended the dogs were Nana.  

Captain Z Step

The boys checking on the water for Nana

Captain Daddy Step

Mommy pretending to fly.  Z Step thought if I had wings I could fly.  I think he was disappointed when I didn't.  

We put on our dog pirate shirt Baba gave him.  It changes colors in the sun- just like magic!  He was really excited.

Silly faces

E Step thought we looked crazy.  He spent most of the time  exploring alone.  

 We made it home for our homemade pizza night.  The dough I made wasn't the best, but we still attempted to make our pirate ship pizzas.  I also made some homemade oat balls that were supposed to be cannonballs.  I forgot to take a photo

Next it was time for the movie.  The boys have to have popcorn while watching a movie, so popcorn was made, and we were nice and comfy on the couch!  

Z step loved the movie.  He has been begging me to watch it again.  I am so happy that I got to see it too!  I love this story.  Daddy Step and I ended up watching Hook just a few days later.  

The following night, Daddy was on duty, so I let Z Step have a special Mommy/Son date.  We decided to watch another disney movie of his choice.  He picked Mulan.  I don't think he was too crazy about it, but you can't compare Mulan to Peter Pan.  Peter Pan is a classic that is very much a boy movie.  

We look forward to watching another Disney movie soon!  

Disneyland Half Marathon

Back in February, I received an email from RunDisney warning me that tickets for the Disneyland Half Marathon were to go on sale the following day.  It is a race that I have always dreamed of doing, I mean who wouldn't want to run at the happiest place on Earth?  Call me crazy, but we registered the next day.  Yes, we know orders always change, and we could have ended up staying in Virginia.  We knew we would have just arrived, and we wouldn't know anyone.  And we didn't even have a plan for the boys, since they couldn't come with us.  But we registered anyway.  Call it irresponsible, but, I mean, come on, it's DISNEY!  We love Disney!  And who really gets to run through the park before it opens?  

Well after arriving in California, we quickly realized that we had no plan for the boys.  We tried to defer the race to 2015 with no luck.  Eventually we learned that Daddy Step's brother was to come Labor Day weekend.  It was perfect!  The boys love him, and he graciously offered to watch them.  

So we headed out to Anaheim for our packet pick up the day before the race.  

The only thing I can say about my first impression of Disneyland in California is that the staff were horrible.  Not the race volunteers, (they were wonderful) the actual Disney staff.  This is the third Disney park we have been to (Florida, Tokyo, and now here) and we were absolutely disgusted.  At race Expo, I overheard one woman pointing out guests and laughing.  I then heard her say, "Look at this one, he's too fat to be at an Expo.  You're supposed to be fit to run a race.  There are so many fat people here."  I kid you not.  As if that was not enough, much of the rest of the staff were completely unfriendly and rude.  I was crossing my fingers that the race day would be better, but they remained the same.  I suppose it is the Southern California way, but I still thought it was unacceptable.  

Packet pick-up in downtown Disney

That evening, we went to bed very early.  We were up the next morning at 2am to get ready and head out the door.  The race began at 5:30, and we had an hour drive to get there.  We parked in the Daisy lot (how ironic) and headed to a little pre-party they had.  Basically it was lots of photo opportunities, and potty breaks.  

Waiting to go, and posing with some toy soldiers

We were told to go to our corrals (again, rude people!) and we waited, and waited, and waited.  We wanted to go to the end of the line, because we just wanted to have fun with this race.  Our intent was to walk and take photos through the fun parts, and run the rest of it.  We ended up starting at 6:15, and jogged for awhile before entering the park.  

Waiting to go.  Leave it to Disney to have a fireworks show before a half marathon!  

Once we entered the park, it was just a leisurely stroll and lots of photo opportunities.  I honestly don't think anyone could run through this part.  There were people stopping every which way to snap photos.  We had a blast seeing the characters and sights.  And we are really looking forward to our visit in October.  

Running by Toy Story things.  The boys are obsessed right now, we had to snap a photo for them.

In Cars Land

Mainstreet, some character sightings, and more cars land.  

Looks like I added some of these photos a few times.  It is late

There were lots of performers along the course.  Those guys on the top left were my favorites.  Very funny and animated.  

;lkj

Yep, that would be my husband!

Running through the castle!  It was the smallest one I have seen, but so pretty!

 Eventually the excitement ended, and it was time to run some of the boring stuff.  We ran through the streets of Anaheim for awhile.  We were eventually excited to stumble upon a bunch of people who brought their old fashioned cars out along the course.  They all cheered us on, and we got to look at some really cool cars.  Keeping it with the Disney theme, Lightning McQueen was there.  

Stopping for a potty break!

We made it past the cars and were nearing our next exciting sight.  First up was the Anaheim Ducks stadium.  

We finally made it to the Angels Stadium, where a crowd of fans were there to cheer us on.  It was really cool being able to run on the stadium, and they even video taped and put it on the jumbotron.  What a cool experience!  

Arriving at the stadium

Lots of cheering.  

All of the bottom stands were full!  It was so cool!  

The last part of the run was full of entertainers and music.  I don't think we went more than  5 minutes without entertainment on this race.  

Finally we finished.  I have no idea what our time was, (that time up there was not ours) and frankly I don't care.  This was for fun, and we did just that.  

They had trouble getting it over Daddy Step's hat.  His bill was too big!  

The coolest medal I have gotten from a race!

In the hours that followed the race, I had gotten to become pretty sore.  I am still recovering from knee injuries, and unfortunately it was giving me a very difficult time on this run.  I was limping for 2 days.  After a quick shower and an attempt at a nap, I ended up on my feet for a few hours cooking dinner for a bunch of Daddy Step's friends.  I think being on my feet and the exhaustion was not good at the time (I was limping pretty bad at this point and was in a daze of exhaustion), but probably helped my recovery in the following days.  

And now, we are home, enjoying a week or so of quiet.