The Happiest Place On Earth

Saturday started bight and early for some, and dark and "oh my God why is that alarm clock going off" early for others. I guess I should say "other" as it pertains to our household. No way in the world I would wake the boys up at 3:00am. Let me tell you, that would be a whole other dimension of grumpiness. No it was Lori who had lost her mind, as she had to get up that early in order to catch a bus and be at the half marathon starting line by 4:30am. Like I said the other day.......complete nuts!

Lori was dressed and out the door by 3:15am, and on her way to running nirvana. I went back to sleep, and dreamed that I was running too. You want to know the sad thing about that? I believe I was more tired from dreaming about running 13.1 miles than Lori was from actually running it.

I got the boys up around 8:00am, and we waited patiently for Lori to get home from her race. By 9:00am, Lori was already home from her 13.1 mile journey, and ready to continue the day's adventure.

Our first order of business was to get some food in us. I certainly did not want Lori to say hi to RALPH again today. We decided to eat breakfast at the resort's restaurant call Olivia's. The food and service were really good, and most importantly, our hypoglycemic protection was at defcon 1.

Today's family adventure would start with another trip to the ESPN Sports Complex. The boys, along with 4000 other kids, were running the Mickey Mile. We stopped by the pavilion again, and I was able to catch Lori being congratulated for her half marathon completion. I asked her to raise her arms in victory, and low an behold she grew another set that came out of her ears. Who knew.   Wow, Disney really is a magical place.

I told the kids that we they would have to run fast during their race, and before you knew it, Snow White's gang was in hot pursuit. Don't worry, Christopher was keeping an eye on them.

We got to the starting area, and the boys had their games faces on. South Side Johnny Cool was ready.....

and after some last minute stretching......Christopher was too.

One last hug from their coach.....

and the boys were ready. On your mark.......get set......GO!

While Lori ran with Christopher, I made my way to the finish line to get some pictures. 10 minutes later, Aidan came running down the track. You can see him in the back, wearing green.

Here he is racing for the strong finish.

Two minutes later....here comes Christopher and Momma.

Christopher too had a strong finish.

Our Champions!!!!!

After the race, it was time, to visit the happiest place on earth. Yep, that's right, Disney's Magical Kingdom. What a special place. It's hard to describe the wonderful feeling you get as a parent the first time your kids lay their eyes on the castle.

I get a little choked up just thinking about the ooohs and ahhhs coming from their mouths. That life long memory is worth the hefty price of admission by itself.

There are so many things to see and do at the park, and so little time. Shops, rides, shows, and restaurants everywhere you look.

We started our journey at Stitch's Great Escape. It was great fun, and Christopher was now hooked. From then on, he wanted Stitch everything.

We wanted to ride another roller coaster, so off to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. This ride was busy, so we got in line and waited......and waited.......and waited.......and " hey Christopher are you having fun in line"?

"How about you Aidan"?

If we would have gotten pictures of Lori and me, our faces would have looked just about the same. The coaster was really fun, but it was the longest wait we had for any ride, and we quickly figured out how to use the FAST PASS service after that.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the park, riding rides, shopping, and eating various and numerous unhealthy delicious things. As darkness fell, just after leaving the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride, we stopped to witness the truly spectacular Parade of Lights. I'm sorry that my camera phone does not do these floats justice. It's just not made to take pictures at night. Hopefully, even with the blurriness, you will be able to sense how visually wonderful this spectacle was.

After the parade was over, we were tired, hungry and happy. We took a bus back to the resort, stopped by the To Go restaurant that was on the property, and we were back in our room eating dinner by 9:00pm. We all went to bed about an hour later with smiles on our faces, and magic in our hearts.

To be continued............

William

Where The Magic Begins

Well, after too much reading and learning, along with lots and lots of "potty words" being shouted in frustration, the main computer is back and better than ever. Woo Hoo!!!!!

Word to the wise.......always.....always.....have a backup for your main hard drive. Trust me on this one. You will thank me later.

As promised, now that HAL is back online, I can update you on our recent excursion to sunny Florida. Because this post will be huge, I will break it up over several days.

Lori, being the lunatic that she is, decided that running a half marathon or a full marathon just wasn't challenging enough for her. Instead, she got the bright idea that running a half marathon on one day, and a full marathon the next day would be.......fun. Yea....you read that right....fun. Ummm.....Ok. Anyway, she heard from a friend of mine that Walt Disney World of all places offered such a challenge. The race is call the Goofy Challenge. I can't for the life of think of why.

The Goofy Challenge takes place on a Saturday (13.1 miles) and Sunday (26.2 miles). This year it was held on Jan 12th and 13th.

One would think that it would be difficult to find enough deranged individuals to justify a challenge of this type. Oh...no, no, no, no. Let me tell you.......the loonies crawl out of the woodwork for this weekend. They come from all over the world to take part in this masochistic ritual. The park had 35,000-40,000 runners participating in the half marathon, and 25,000 participating in the full marathon. Of those, approximately 10,000 decided to participate in the Goofy Challenge. I know...unbelievable right?

Our trip started on Thursday afternoon. The kids got out of school, and we immediately left for the airport. Our flight was on time, and surprisingly good. The kids were entertained with the abundance of electronic devices that were stowed in our backpacks, along with sugary treats. As any parent of young children can attest, a trouble free trip is a Godsend and a rarity.

After arriving at Orlando's airport around 8:45pm, we soon found our Magic Express Disney Bus to take us to our resort - Old Key West Disney. If you are not familiar with this resort, as you might have guessed, it has the look and feel of.....wait for it......Key West, Florida. It is a really beautiful property, and after arriving, we discovered that our villa was fantastic. We got to bed at a decent hour, and dreamed of the great adventures that would start the next morning.

After waking up on Friday morning, and looking out the window, I just had to get a picture. Ahh....this is where I learned of my first "mess up". "Hmmm.....honey...where is the camera"? Oops! I forgot to pack it. #$%^@#$ Oh well, my Samsung Galaxy III takes pretty good pictures, so I used it to document the entire trip. Here is my first shot, a view from our patio - beautiful.

Our morning started a bit later that we anticipated, but with kids, that is the norm. We were supposed to get breakfast, and then head over the Disney's ESPN World Wide Sports Complex to pick up the race packets for Lori and the kids. No, the kids were not running the Goofy Challenge, but we did register them for the Mickey Mile. It's a kid's race that earns them a shirt and most importantly a race medal. Anyway, we arrived at the main bus stop late, and for some stupid reason (my suggestion...another oops) we decided to skip breakfast at that time, and head to the complex. Big Mistake!

You might not know this about Lori, but she gets hypoglycemic very easy. She needs her morning protein to maintain her beautiful demeanor (more on this later). I knew this, so my suggestion to skip breakfast was my second "mess up". Every thing was going well, and we were enjoying the neat complex,

and finding out where we needed to pick up the race packets. We found the right pavilion to get the initial packets, and Lori stood in line while I entertained the kids. Here is a picture of them patiently waiting from mom to return.

After picking up our packets, I figured it was time to go. Nope, I would be wrong.  Now we had to go across to the next pavilion to pick up the shirt and number packets. Oh OK...how bad could that be. Well............

Yep, that's the line to get into the next building. Uh oh. The first thing you should remember about this particular situation is what I wrote about earlier. Lori had not eaten breakfast, and we were now standing in a 500 foot line, in 80 degree weather, and 90% humidity. Not a good combination for Ms. "I need my protein". Well, as you might have guessed, it did not take long for Lori's head to start pounding, and her stomach to start doing summersaults.

The line was moving slowly, but not quite as slowly as Lori's ability to hold down the contents of her belly. After walking off by herself, she wasted no time in Christening the soccer field with some fertilizer. Needless to say, our trip to pick up the shirt packets, once inside the pavilion, was completed in record time.

Before Lori could get sick again, we heading for the air conditioned bus to take us back to the villa. Lori napped on the bus, and we were thankful that there were no more episodes before arriving at the villa.

By the time the bus dropped us off, Lori was in the middle of a full blown migraine. We got her back to the room where she ate and drank a little, and then she laid down for a nap. Animal Kingdom would have to wait.

Lori woke up around 3:00pm feeling much better. We got everything ready, and headed for our first trip to one on the Disney Parks. Animal Kingdom was first on our list, and the boys (and us too) were super excited.

After arriving at the park, we were amazed at all of the sights and sounds. The park is beautiful. Think of it as a huge zoo, with roller coasters and rides mixed in. At the center of the park is the "Tree of Life". It is a huge man made tree, with carving of animals all over it. I am ashamed to say that my picture of it is blurry, and does not do it justice.

There are so many things to do, and so many things to see, it's hard to take them all in. Beauty is everywhere.

The kids were having a ball.

The main attraction at the park is a roller coaster called Extreme Everest. It is incredible. While heading over to it, I snapped a couple of pictures of the ride.

The coaster was a blast. It took some coaxing to get Aidan to ride with me, but after it was over, he said he enjoyed it. Christopher on the other hand, needed no coaxing, and was having a ball riding in the car behind us with Momma. He is absolutely fearless.

We walked for miles and miles looking at all of the animals and enjoying the rides.

We finished up our trip to Animal Kingdom by taking a safari. We loaded in the huge truck, and off went to see Africa. We saw Hippos, and Nile Crocs.

The highlight of the safari was seeing a mother and baby elephant enjoying their natural habitat.

We left the park around 7:45 that evening, and headed to the Downtown Disney area.

Downtown Disney is a park that only has retail shops and restaurants. It is huge, and crowded. While we were heading to the restaurant, we stopped by the Lego Store. The Lego sculptures were incredible.

We decided to eat at Fulton's Crab House. It is a huge riverboat, and the food and service was really good. After eating and shopping, we headed home about 10:30pm. Christopher was asleep before the bus pulled out to go back to the villa. It took us no time at all to fall asleep once we got back to our villa. We all dreamed about what the next day had in store for us.

To be continued.....

William

Silence

If you are wondering why there have not been any recent updates, well.....this time you can't point the finger at me. The hard drive on our main computer has decided to have an unscheduled nap, and it is unusable right now. It has all of last week's Disney trip pictures, so I need to get it working again. As soon as I do, expect lots of pictures. William

Santa Strikes Again

Another year, another visit from the jolly fat man.  Wow, 2012 went by in a flash.

Christmas morning came bright and early this year.  We had boys in our room waking us up at 5:00am.  Yep, really stinking early considering that we hit the hay a little after 2:00am.  Nothing like 3 hours of sleep to prepare you for a full day of playing with two boys and all of their new toys.  Yipee!

Even with little sleep, you couldn't help but notice the glowing faces of Christopher and Aidan.  The excitement and smiles are worth every excruciating minute of Christmas shopping.  The sheer joy is intoxicating.

Santa must have spent most of the year blind and deaf.  I know this because he actually came to our house, and delivered wonderful presents to the boys.  There could be no other explanation.  Whatever the reason, the boys were elated that he stopped by.

Christopher got a brand new big boy bicycle from Santa!  He was really excited until he noticed the lack of training wheels.  "Uh oh......daddy......Santa forgot the training wheels".  Nope buddy, its time to ride like a big boy.

Aidan asked Santa for a new Skylanders Giants set, and he delivered exactly what he wanted.  

 

With the Santa gifts out of the way, it was time to start the wrapping paper carnage. Little hands were moving at such a feverish pace, I was worried about a fire starting from the friction. Here is Christopher showing off his new Cars II puzzle.

Oh no....this can't be good!

Plenty more gifts were unwrapped and enjoyed.  Too many, but that's the way it goes.  We all had a wonderful time, and each of us made out like bandits.  Lori did a great job picking out my gifts, and I am thankful every day that she is so wonderful.

I will leave you with one last picture of our two monkeys.  They keep us young, and really make us appreciate how lucky we are.

I hope 2013 brings happiness, and joy to each and everyone of you. 


William